Elections Commissions (EC) President Ahmed Shareef has stated that the commission will in no way or form, tamper with the coming presidential elections on September 27.
In a ceremony held today at EC’s Electoral Management Center to decide the presidential candidate order, Shareef declared that no procedures had been made with regards to vote tampering.
The ceremony was presided by representatives from ruling party Progressive Party of Maldives as well as the opposition coalition, corroborating EC's denial regarding the allegation of tampering with re-registration forms.
“If anything was tampered with, then it was by those who presented the documents - the political parties," said Shareef.
The delay in publishing the re-registration form information has been attributed to EC's focus shifting to investigating the allegedly altered forms.
However, EC has announced that details of the re-registration forms will be shared in the following week.
“We know who presented the [tampered] forms to us. We have their finger prints. We have the information to assess which party they belong to as well as their addresses,” said the Elections Commissioner, further adding that those who had interfered with the elections would be brought to trial and charged for the crimes that they have committed.
He also urged the public to not wrongfully accuse EC members of crimes that they had not perpetrated.
Elections commission has announced that over 95,000 people have presented their forms for the voter re-registration and that the figure included illegitimate forms as well but did not disclose any details.
Shareef strongly condemned the media for spreading information without considering what he deems to be the facts, stating that the commission had previously turned a blind eye to the media.
He added that the role of media is to quote the commission's dialogue and spread it to audiences, in the interest of public awareness and authentic information. He said that actions would be taken against media outlets that fail to act accordingly.
During the ceremony, the presidential candidate number one and the number two was awarded to President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, and Opposition Coalition presidential candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, respectively.
This event marks the first election, since the adoption of the new constitution in 2008, in which the Maldives will choose between only two candidates in a presidential election.
As such, the winner will be decided by the majority vote in a single round of voting.
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