Nasheed visits polling stations in Malé City

Former President and Speaker of Parliament, Mohamed Nasheed visiting polling stations in Malé City | Photo: Simwar

Malé, Maldives – Former President and Speaker of Parliament, Mohamed Nasheed has started to visit various polling stations around Malé City.

Pictures and videos of the Former President and Speaker of parliament going to various polling station and speaking to voters have been shared around on social media platforms.

Local Council Election (LCE) and Women’s Development Committee (WDC) election started at 07:00 and will be carried out until 18:00. While normal voting hours are set to be from 07:00 till 17:00, covid patients, people in quarantine and people in isolation are to vote after from 17:00 till 18:00.

While President of Elections Commission, Ahmed Shareef had guaranteed that everyone turning 18 by April 10, can vote in the upcoming, EC revealed that they have released updated voters list now. Elections Commission also added that out of the 273,182 eligible voters, 5,134 are those who turned 18 within the year by which the election was postponed. 

President of Elections Commission (EC), Ahmed Shareef has raised concerns over the lack of voters present at some of the polling stations for the local council elections. 

EC Shareef spoke to local media outlet, ‘Avas’ and 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.