Maldives – Elections Commission (EC) stated that up to now, 32% people have voted in the Local Council Election and the Women’s Development Committees (WDC) election today.
According to Elections Commissions this is 86,000 people from the whole Maldives. Elections Commission had previously stated that a total of 273,182 eligible voters will be there for todays vote and out of that 5,134 are those who turned 18 within the year by which the election was postponed.
Election Commission President, Shareef had told in the morning that this was a decrease compared to the elections kept in the past years. He added that it is estimated 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.
