Second round of the Presidential Election to see 586 ballot boxes

The Elections Commission of Maldives has announced the decision to set up a total of 586 ballot boxes for the second round of the 2023 Presidential Election.

This announcement was made by the Vise President of the commission, Ismail Habeeb during a press conference held on Saturday.

Speaking at the presser, Habeeb noted that the second round will see 12 more ballot boxes compared to the first round of the election.

As such, he noted that four ballot boxes has been added to Male', two ballot boxes added to Hulhumale' Phase One, four ballot boxes added to Hulhumale' Phase Two, one ballot box added to Villimale' and one additional ballot box to be stationed in Trivandrum, India.

Additionally, Habeeb stated that 43 polling stations kept in small spaces during the first round of the election have been relocated to other spacious places for the second round of voting.

The first round of the Presidential Election saw a total of 574 ballot boxes. As such, 142 polling stations were set up for voters native to the capital, Malé City and natives of other islands residing in Male Cty,  27 ballot boxes in Hulhumalé, seven ballot boxes in Villimalé, 319 polling stations in outlying atolls, 65 ballot boxes in resorts and five ballot boxes at Prison complexes.

One ballot box was placed at Thilafushi and eight ballot boxes were set up in five other countries.

A total of 282,395 were eligible to vote in the first round of the election. However, with 408 new voters, a total of 282,807 are now eligible to vote in the second round.

Only about 80 percent of the eligible voters exercised their right to vote in the first round.

As the simple majority of votes required to form a government was not attained by any candidate, front runners Dr. Mohamed Muizzu and President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih are headed for a run-off election.

The second round of voting in this year’s presidential election will take place from 8am to 5pm, on September 30.