MDP primary: No changes to final results

In a press conference after the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) posted the final results of its presidential primary Thursday, the party’s elections committee said they did not find any irregularities that would affect the results.

At the press conference, MDP’s deputy chairperson and chair of elections committee, Ibrahim Waheed (Iburey) said they did not receive any complaint that changed the preliminary results.

He said that some of the complaints raised major issues, but none of which would impact the results.

“The complaints committee did not find any complaint that would affect the election results,” he said.

Complaints committee member Anas Abdul Sattar said the biggest issue they found was the disruption of voting over an allegation of an unregistered voter who cast his vote to the South Maafannu constituency ballot box in Male’. He said the officials later confirmed he was a registered voter.

The final results posted by MDP shows the presidential primary had a voter turnout of 71 percent – with 40,887 voters.

President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih won the election with 61 percent of votes (24,566 votes), while his rival, MDP’s leader Mohamed Nasheed won 38 percent (15,641 votes).

According to Iburey, President Solih will be officially presented with the party’s presidential ticket in mid-February.

Nasheed has refused to support President Solih’s candidature, and is working on forming a separate branch within MDP.