The Supreme Court of the Maldives has reached the decision to speed up the process of issuing criminal records to candidates of the upcoming local council elections and the women’s development committee elections.

As such, the court revealed that it will be following through the process where applicants will be cleared their criminal records on the spot until 24 February, the deadline set by the Elections Commission of the Maldives to accept application forms from candidates vying for women’s development committees who are also required to submit their criminal records.

During previous elections, courts would take hours or even a day to process the criminal record forms from applicants, however, the Supreme Court decided to speed up the process and issue criminal records for applicants on the spot with the aim to ensure the procedure goes smoothly without any hiccups, as 1,912 candidates will be elected in both elections this year.

Applications will be accepted from 8am to 04:30pm through Sunday to Thursday, from 02:30pm to 5pm on Fridays and from 10am to 04:30pm on Saturdays.

This will be the first time the ECM is scheduled to hold two different elections during one day, after the amendments made to the Decentralization Act.

980 out of the 1,912 candidates to be elected this year are contesting for the local councils and 930 for women’s development committees.

ECM expects to receive over 6,000 candidacies and will station about 7,000 officials to be active near the ballot boxes, an estimate total of 545 ballot boxes will be placed. The commission will be announcing an exact amount of ballot boxes to be placed, following the re-registration process.

Both elections are slated for 4 April 2020.