PPM asks police to investigate shredding of ballot papers

The Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) has asked the Maldives Police Service (MPS) to look into Elections Commission (EC)’s decision to shred the ballot papers used in September’s presidential election, claiming that it was done amid a probe into electoral fraud.

Following its candidate President Abdulla Yameen’s huge loss in the election, PPM has accused the Commission of vote rigging. Yameen had also filed a petition at the Supreme, which has since ruled that there was no legal basis or sufficient evidence to annul the election results.

While EC had on Tuesday revealed that the ballot papers have been shredded and that they will be destroyed soon with the assistance of the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF), PPM described it as a “trickery”.

In statement released late at night, PPM called on the police to hold the Commission members accountable over the shredding of the ballot papers, as well as to share details of the investigation with the people.

Elections Commissioner Ahmed Shareef had later, at via twitter, clarified that the ballot papers were shredded seven days after the lawfully given period to retain the papers.

He added that EC was not informed of any investigations into the ballot papers, or court cases. Shareef was appointed as EC chief mere months ahead of the election, he was a close ally of Yameen.

He was summoned to the police station hours after EC’s press conference, for questioning regarding the matter.

The opposition coalition’s candidate, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, emerged victorious in the 2018 presidential election, taking 134,705 of the votes while Yameen received 96,052.

While the outgoing president’s hopes for re-election was quashed, he has since said that he does not believe that he would have received “just” 96,000 votes.