Although the number of applications submitted to re-register for the second round of this year’s presidential election is high, there is no room to declare there will be fraud, yet, says the President of the Elections Commission of Maldives (EC), Fuwad Thoufeeq.

Speaking to RaajjeMV, Fuwad confirmed that the number of individuals who had re-registered for the second round is high.

This has prompted the commission to begin work to verify the authenticity of these forms.

The Elections Commissioner went on to reveal that they will be publicizing the list once it is verified and that individuals will have the opportunity to check the authenticity once it is publicized.

Fuwad went on to reveal that there is no room to declare there will be fraud, yet.

However, he stressed that there were some attacks on the EC website and the portal established to make the re-registration process easier, noting that the hackers were unable to succeed due to the resilient efforts of the commission’s team.

Fuwad highlighted that the security features of the website and portal were notably strong.

More than 47,000 individuals have re-registered for the second round.

42,867 individuals had applied to re-register in the first round of the September polls, held on September 9.

Highlighting that more than 47,000 have re-registered for the second round, the commission revealed that over 19,000 of these forms were registered by Sunday.

EC is currently working to verify the authenticity of more than 27,000 applications.

The commission will be opening a window for complaints after publicizing the list of re-registered individuals as soon as the authenticity of said forms is verified.

The list of re-registered individuals will be publicized in the government gazette, the EC website as well as by the parties representing both candidates.

According to the EC, most of the applications were received from the parties representing both candidates.

The EC also noted that some of the applicants who had applied for online re-registration had re-applied physical forms as the application forms were pending.

As the simple majority of votes required was not reached by any candidate in the first round, front runners President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih and Dr. Mohammed Muizzu are headed for a run-off election.

The second round of polls will take place on September 30.