Speaker and former President, Mohamed Nasheed has said that his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) aims to win over 50 percent of the votes in the local council elections.

The MDP president made the statement during a press conference held at the party headquarters on Friday.

Noting that the main ruling party won 48 percent of the popular votes in the 2019 parliamentary elections, Nasheed said that they are aiming for over 50 percent in the local council elections.

While the Local Council and Women’s Development Committee (WDC) Elections were to be held in April, they were postponed due to Covid-19 pandemic. It was done after extending the terms of existing councilors through a constitutional amendment, before their terms ended on June 3, to avoid a legal vacuum.

Highlighting that the election will be likely be held in early March 2021, Nasheed expressed hope that the local council elections are held “as soon as possible”.

While Elections Commission (EC) President Ahmed Shareef had previously said that work was underway to hold the Local Council and Women’s Development Committee (WDC) Elections on 6 March 2021, he has since said that it will most likely be held on 13 March 2021. This, Shareef said, is due to the various challenges they would face given that schools will be open that week and they are required to use Ministry of Education's facilities.

March 6 is the weekend and the following week is mid-term break as per next year’s academic calendar.

Further stressing that MDP is always eagerly awaiting an election, Nasheed said that the party will emerge victorious in each one "given that there is equal opportunity".

While he said this, majority of the 114 candidates that have withdrawn from the local council elections thus far are representatives of MDP.