10,000 voters re-register for parliamentary elections

10,028 people have re-registered to vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections, says the Elections Commission (EC).

The six-day window to re-register for the April 21 elections expired at 03:00 pm on Saturday.

The EC announced on Sunday that the commission received 11,169 online re-registration applications via eFaas during the period. Of these, 1,141 applications were rejected, and the remaining 10,028 applications approved.

EC’s secretary-general Hassan Zakariyya said that the number of people who re-registered this year is low compared to past elections.

EC had decided to hold voting in overseas cities where at least 150 people re-register to vote in. But owing to the low re-registration rate, voting will only be held in three foreign countries; in India’s Trivandrum, Sri Lanka’s Colombo and Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur. Voting is not being held in the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Malaysia.

Total 389 candidates are contesting for 93 parliamentary seats in this year’s elections. The highest number of candidates are from the main opposition MDP – which are contesting 90 seats, followed by the main ruling PPM-PNC coalition, which is contesting 89 seats.