The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has taken an appeal to the Supreme Court regarding the election of a candidate from the People's National Congress (PNC) after the High Court had voided ballot papers from the Local Council Election due to the papers having markings on them.
The issue was brought forward by Mohamed Nazeeh, who contested for the Veyvah Council on a PNC ticket, in a case filed against the Elections Commission. He submitted the case to the High Court after three vote papers, which were considered invalid, were later determined to be valid. That determination had been made after the vote box was reopened and re-examined.
The lawyer for the Elections Commission stated that the marks on those three papers were not dots placed by the person who went to vote, but were dots that occurred during printing, and that the votes should not be voided. In the election, an MDP candidate had secured victory over Nazeeh by a margin of two votes.
In the judgment delivered by the High Court last week, it stated that the marks on the three vote papers involved in the case were marks that made the papers identifiable even upon a superficial inspection.
Therefore, the court ruled that these were not votes where the secrecy of the vote could be guaranteed.
Consequently, the judgment declared those three vote papers invalid. It also ordered the Elections Commission to announce the election results again after deducting those three votes.
By following this order, the election victory will shift to Nazeeh instead of the MDP candidate.
MDP proceeded to intervene when the case was being heard in the High Court. On Sunday, MDP proceeded to appeal the ruling that was made on Wednesday.
However, the decision to hear the case has not been made as of yet.
As the case is still in court, the Veyvah Council seat remains vacant.
High Court delivered this judgment with a majority of two judges. Judge Ibrahim Mahir, who was on the bench, held a dissenting opinion. In his opinion, he stated that it is not believed that the ink spots on the vote papers would lead to the loss of the secrecy of the vote.
