Male’, Maldives – A total of 86 candidates who initially applied to contest in the Local Council Elections (LCE), which was earlier scheduled for this year, but postponed to 2021 due to the ongoing pandemic, have withdrawn their candidacy.
President of the Elections Commission (EC), Ahmed Shareef revealed that by the end of Tuesday, 21 candidates running for the LCE and 20 candidates for the WDC elections on the Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) ticket, have withdrawn their names.
As for the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), 10 candidates running for the LCE and 2 candidates for the WDC elections have withdrawn, while JP saw six LCE candidates take back their candidacy. An additional 22 independent candidates also withdrew from the LCE elections, while 5 also withdrew from the WDC elections as independent candidates.
The opportunity to withdraw candidacies was opened up by the Elections Commisson on July 23rd, via the ‘Candidacy withdrawal form for Local Council and Women’s Development Committee Elections’.
This local council council election was also to be held simultaneously with the Women’s Development Committee (WDC) elections. However, both elections were postponed due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
