59 candidates withdraw from local elections

A total of 59 candidates have withdraws from the Local Council Elections and the Women’s Development Committee Elections 2020.

The opportunity to withdraw from the LCE and Women’s Development Committee Elections slated for 2020 was granted by the Elections Commission (EC) on June 23.

EC revealed that 40 out of the 59 candidates had withdrawn from the council elections and that the remaining 19 had withdrawn from the Women’s Development Committee Elections.

Most of the candidates who withdrew from the council elections were independent candidates; 20. 11 candidates representing main ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) had also withdrawn alongside four each from Jumhooree Party (JP) and the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM).

14 MDP members had withdrawn from the Women’s Development Committee Elections as well as two from PPM and three independent candidates.

In May, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih ratified the special bill to delay the elections after the People’s Majlis passed the special motion, the Sunset Bill regarding the Local Council Elections, which stated that voting should be held by January 6, 2021, during April.

According to the bill, both elections which were originally scheduled to be held in April this year, will take place one year after the bill’s ratification. Although the motion states that the latest date on which the elections may be held is January 6, 2021, the committee has amended the elections act mandating both elections to be held within a year after the amendments are implemented. The one-year period was given in order to vest the powers to allocate a date for the elections, to EC.

It also addresses certain issues that had arisen due to the need to postpone the elections; it lifts the suspension on civil servants who had been contesting for the councils, and allows candidates who had already been selected to compete for local councils to put their names forward in the rescheduled elections.