Malé, Maldives – The opposition coalition protested in Malé last night regarding delays in election results and questioning the validity of the recount.
The opposition party accused ruling party Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) of trying to change the results of the Local Council Elections (LCE) and stated that they will not stay quiet if the local council election vote results are manipulated in the recount by the Elections Commission (EC). Police dispersed the protestors and arrested some.
Elections Commission has decided to recount 18 ballot boxes, claiming that they are not influenced by any political party.
The Opposition won big in last Saturday’s Local Council and Women’s Development Committee Elections.
The result is being challenged by the ruling party MDP, requesting to recount multiple ballot boxes. This move was met with resistance by the opposition.
At a press conference this week, acting leader of the opposition PNC/ PPM coalition, Abdul Raheem Abdulla (Adhurey) stated that MDP is claiming that there are issues in the results of some ballot boxes in Malé and Addu, and are attempting a recount. He added that in some areas where the governing party, MDP won, the results are questionable as well.
In the local council elections held last Saturday, while MDP won the election in summary, opposition party PPM candidates won seats in MDP strongholds including winning majority in Malé council and taking the Malé mayors seat. PPM won seats in highly populated MDP super majority areas like Addu City and GDh. Thinadhoo. Since its inception, MDP had dominated over the capital Male’ city area until this local council elections was taken over by the opposition parties.
