The Elections Commission (EC) stated just now that the disputes that arose during the counting for today’s Local Council Elections, the Women’s Development Committee (WDC) Elections, and the referendum on holding the two main elections on the same day have been resolved, and the counting of the Henveiru West constituency ballot box has resumed.

The issue escalated around 8:00 PM tonight while the Henveiru West ballot box placed at Majeediyya School was being counted, due to public dissatisfaction over how valid and invalid votes were being determined among the ballot papers.

As the problem grew, police also attended the scene.

EC Vice President Salah Rasheed stated that a problem occurred during the counting of invalid votes for that box and that the EC has attended to the matter. Salah further noted that the issue has been resolved and the recount is proceeding.

According to statistics released by the EC, the 185,709 people who voted by 4:00 PM consisted of 92,567 women and 93,142 men. This accounts for 62.9 percent of those eligible to vote.

Following that, an additional hour was granted for voting because many people remained in queues and today was an exceptionally hot day. Even when the queues were closed at 5:00 PM, many people were still lined up.

In the Local Council Election, 678 people will be elected.

Additionally, 678 people will be elected to the Women’s Development Committees. Therefore, a total of 1,356 people will be elected across both elections.

According to the provisional results of the council elections, the MDP has defended the mayoral seats in all cities across the Maldives.

Alongside this election, a referendum was taken on whether to hold the Presidential and Parliamentary elections on the same day.

Provisional results show that the majority of people have said "no" to holding the Presidential and Parliamentary elections on the same day.