Maldives Elections Commission has announced its decision to allow candidates contesting in the Parliamentary Election to allow a common name to be printed out next to their names in the ballot papers.

With this change, candidates will be allowed to feature their common names next to their candidate number in the ballot papers.

The Parliamentary Election is scheduled for 6 April.

The commission further revealed that they had received 406 candidacy forms for the elections. However, they had annulled five forms and eight applicants had taken back their forms. The final number of candidates for the upcoming elections is 393.

While candidates are contesting for a total of 87 constituencies in Parliament, there are 264،589 eligible voters to cast their votes for their respective constituencies in Parliament.

EC earlier announced that they have opened opportunity for interested companies to contract printing out the ballot papers.