Maldives – Elections Commission (EC) stated that up to now, 17% people have voted in the Local Council Election and the Women’s Development Committees (WDC) election today.
In the press conference kept by EC, President of EC Ahmed Shareef stated that up until 10:45am, only 17% people have cast their votes. Shareef noted that this was a decrease compared to the elections kept in the past years. He added that it is approximated that only 38 to 40% people would vote in this election. Shareef said that he hoped that more people would come to caste their votes in the afternoon.
Shareef also added that the vote box in Vilufushi which was not opened due to lack of officials, had been opened and that people are already in queue to cast their votes. Shareef said that Vilufushi voting would continue without any problems arising.
EC Shareef had raised concerns over the lack of voters present at some of the polling stations for the local council elections earlier this morning.
EC Shareef informed that voting has still not begun in some of the polling stations as no people have arrived to vote yet and has noted that so far, the amount of people appearing to vote is considerably less compared to the usual amount of people that arrive for the previous elections.
While one of the reason for the delay in voting is due to absence of people, EC Shareef informed that the delay in some stations is also due to the officials and that they are currently preparing to send backup officials for the required stations.
Other than these, EC Shareef stated that no additional issue has yet raised in the polling stations and that the Police has not yet reported any issue yet either.
According to the latest statistics revealed by the Local Council Elections, while there are a total of 713 polling stations present in the atolls and in the Capital Male’ area of Maldives for Local Council Elections and Women’s Development Committee, only 518 polling stations has begun their work.
While the voting began early morning at 07:00 for the whole country, both EC and several local media outlets have noted that the amount of people arriving to vote is considerably less. For the Local Council Elections and Women’s Development Committee, a total of 273,128 people are yet to vote before the polling stations close at 18:00 today.
