Elections results unchanged: Elections Chief

Election Commission (EC)'s President Ahmed Shareef, on Thursday, stated that although the commission received multiple complaints and requests to recount certain ballot boxes, election results remain unchanged.

Prior to revealing the permanent results of the recent parliamentary election, during a press conference, Shareef stated that 24 issues were brought forward to the commission.

Upon investigation into complaints, EC decided to recount ballot boxes in the constituencies of Maavah, Maamigili, Maduvvari and Funadhoo. No further recounts were sanctioned by the commission.

According to the EC chief, Maamigili was the only constituency in which observers and candidate monitors directly complained to the official in charge of the polling stations.

"There will be no delay in announcing official results due to complaints.", said Shareef.

EC on Tuesday, declared that Parliament Speaker Qasim Ibrahim gained an additional 64 votes after 190 invalid votes from three ballot boxes in Maamigili constituency were recounted.

Shareef stated that if a complaint is severe enough to cause scepticism towards the legitimacy of the election results, then EC would take every effort to guarantee the validity of the ballot, as such, the recounts were authorized in order to ascertain foul play in the vote.

He attributed some of the complaints by losing candidates as a bid to dispute the election results.

Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) attained a clear lead ahead in the elections. According to the most recently publicised tentative results MDP received 65 seats, a parliamentary supermajority and a historically significant outcome.

The electoral watchdog’s statistics show that 80 percent out of all eligible voters had voted in the parliamentary elections, with 105,077 female voters and 107,002 male voters. Total voter turnout was 212,079.

At the time of elections, there were 264,442 eligible voters from all 87 constituencies.

EC indicates that a total of 4,852 votes were spoilt. In contrast, the 2018 presidential elections concluded with 3,132 null votes.