Former Defense Minister Adam Shareef and Jumhooree Party (JP) leader Qasim Ibrahim have secured the Maduvvari and Maamigili seats respectively after a ballot recount disclosed more votes for both candidates.

Following a complaint at the Elections Commission of the Maldives (ECM), officials had re-counted the invalid votes for both constituencies following which more votes were discovered for both candidates.

The Elections Center on Wednesday re-counted 42 invalid votes in one ballot box for Maamigili constituency and invalid votes in four ballot boxes for Maduvvari constituency.

Out of the 42 invalid votes in the ballot box for Maamigili, Qasim who contested for the seat through his JP, won 18 while Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)’s Ali Ameez fell behind with 11 votes.

Following this, RaajjeMV understands that the vote difference between the candidates Is now 87.

Officials had re-counted three ballot boxes for the constituency on Tuesday night as well.

Maduvvari seat was secured by former Minister Shareef who represented opposition People’s National Congress (PNC) after beating MDP’s candidate Adam Shiham with a 17-vote difference.

With the re-count, Shareef had won eight more votes, making the vote difference 26.

Officials are also to re-count a ballot box for Maavah constituency later on Wednesday.

PNC’s candidate and former Economic Minister Mohamed Saeed and MDP’s Ibrahim Falaah who contested for the seat had a close difference of votes between them, following which officials had re-counted ballots for the constituency on Tuesday as well.