Elections Commission (EC) statistics show a drop in the number of voters in the last election.

At a press conference, EC President Ahmed Shareef said that out of the 264,442 eligible voters, 212,079 (80.2%) had voted in Saturday’s parliamentary election.

Of the eligible voters, 52,363 (19.8%) did not vote.

This is a decrease of voters compared to the presidential election six months earlier, which saw a 233,889- (89.2%) turnout- out of 262,135 eligible voters.

However, the number of voters in this year’s parliamentary election is an increase compared to the 77.3% turnout in the last parliamentary election five years ago in 2014, which saw the participation of 186,089 of the 240,652 eligible voters.