No case of vote fraud or anything that could interfere with results: Transparency

Transparency Maldives has said that it has not identified any cases of vote fraud or tampering with the authentic results during Saturday’s presidential election.

This was revealed by the anti-corruption watchdog during a press conference held on Sunday.

As such, Transparency revealed that they mainly observed issues related to vote secrecy and the several different decisions taken by officials stationed at polling booths.

Highlighting that while the layout of the centers was the same, due to some of them being smaller in size, representatives, observers and monitors had to stand near the polling booths, which could have led to them being able to see voters marking their ballot papers.

Transparency also stressed that awareness campaigns to increase voter turnout were also not carried out in the best possible manner in several constituencies, noting that it could not be made certain that awareness information provided by the Elections Commission through social media platforms, was received by the public.

This being said, Transparency has urged the commission to address and resolve these issues and change the layout of polling booths and establish the polling centers in spacious places so that the secrecy of ballot papers, is not compromised during the second round of polls.

The anti-corruption watchdog has also urged to ensure pictures and videos are not being taken when voters mark their ballot papers.

Transparency went on to note that although these minor issues were observed, the overall election process went smoothly.

In its final press statement released on Saturday, the anti-corruption watchdog shed light on its belief that an independent observation effort at this scale promotes greater levels of trust in electoral processes, adding that their observers played a crucial role in ensuring the transparency of electoral processes in the Maldives.

Through a methodology based on systematic random sampling, Transparency’s observers collected both qualitative and quantitative data from 311 polling stations representing 56.86 percent of all ballot boxes.

According to Transparency, 4.4 percent of ballot boxes were closed before 4pm, 91.2 percent of ballot boxes closed between 4pm and 5pm, and 4.4 percent of boxes closed after 5pm.

The NGO revealed that there were reports that people were not able to vote because their names were not on the voter registry, but this affected very few cases and only 1.8 percent of the total voter turnout were assisted voters spread across 78.6 percent of the polling stations.

Noting that voting was temporarily halted in eight percent of polling stations, Transparency added that in 64 percent of these cases the interventions were in the direction of the presiding officer and despite a few isolated cases of reported violence at polling booths, Saturday’s election was “relatively” peaceful.

Police officers are to have entered 18 percent of polling stations and in 81 percent of these cases, interventions occurred at the invitation of the presiding officer in accordance with the law.

Further, candidate representation was highest for Dr. Mohamed Muizzu and President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih during the counting process. Candidate representatives for Ilyas Labeeb, Gasim Ibrahim and Mohamed Nazim were present at 37 percent, 22 percent and 22 percent of polling stations respectively.

Transparency also observed that candidate representatives for independent candidate Umar Naseer, Faris Maumoon and Hassan Zameel were present at two to three percent of polling stations and only 0.6 percent of ballot papers were disputed by the candidate/party observers during the counting process.

The anti-corruption watchdog did not receive any reports or complaints regarding double voting, underage voting or issues with votes cast in the names of deceased individuals were reported in any of the boxes.

As the simple majority of votes required was not reached by any candidate, President Solih and Dr. Muizzu are headed for a run-off election, scheduled for September 30.

Transparency has urged all parties and candidates to maintain a peaceful environment, and ensure campaigning is conducted in accordance with electoral regulations and does not violate the rights of other parties or candidates.