Preliminary results of the Parliamentary Elections held on Sunday to elect the 20th Parliament of the Maldives show that 66 candidates who contested on ruling party People’s National Congress (PNC) tickets have secured their seats.
Preliminary results of the Parliamentary Elections held on Sunday to elect the 20th Parliament of the Maldives show that 66 candidates who contested on ruling party People’s National Congress (PNC) tickets have secured their seats.
Results also show that Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) who held the majority in the 19th Parliament only managed to win 12 constituencies this time, while 11 independent candidates, two Maldives Development Alliance (MDA) candidates, a candidate from Jumhoori Party (JP) and a candidate from Maldives National Party (MNP) also won the elections.
In order to secure a super majority, PNC needed to claim at least 70 of the 93 seats. Despite the party itself winning 66 constituencies, PNC managed to secure a super majority considering the joined forces of its coalition parties MDA, JP, MNP, as well as four independent candidates who were endorsed by them.
With this, the government will have a total of 74 parliament members aligned with them.
In addition to the seats won by MNP, JP and MDA, 11 independent candidates also secured seats in the election, making this the first time so many independent candidates won such a substantial number of seats.
Looking at MDP’s performance in the election, the party contested in all 93 constituencies. However, they won only 12. Even veteran MPs who served multiple terms faced defeat this time round. This comes as a significant loss for MDP who secured 65 seats in the previous election to elect MPs for the ongoing Parliament.
The Democrats, led by former president and speaker of the Parliament Mohamed Nasheed also met with failure after none of its candidates were elected to the parliament this time despite contesting for 39 seats. Similarly, Adhaalath Party also didn’t win any seats.
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