The Elections Commission (EC), who recounted 24 ballot boxes due to discrepancies in the result sheets, has said that they did not notice any issues that affected the results of the Local Council Elections.

While the Local Council Elections were held on May 6, EC is yet to announce the results.

The Commission began the recounting process on Thursday, which continued on Friday as well. It was done in the presence of monitors, observers, candidates’ representatives and journalists. The results were announced immediately after the recount, and resealed.

While the result sheets are entered into an automated system, EC said that they decided to do the recount for ‘verification purposes’, as the result sheets of the 24 ballot boxes were rejected by the machine.

While EC is yet to announce final results, interim results show the opposition to be leading, with over 300 of the 664 seats; over 300 seats for Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), 20 for Jumhooree Party (JP), 191 seats for ruling Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) and 19 seats for the Maldives Development Alliance (MDA), while 101 seats were won by independent candidates.