Polling centers empty; voter turnout at 7%

Elections Commission (EC) reports that the voter turnout in the Male’ City mayoral race is low, with only seven percent of eligible voters having cast their votes so far.

Voters from the Maldivian capital are electing Male’ City’s new mayor, and representatives to three additional seats at the council – the South Maafannu seat, Central Henveiru seat and South Henveiru seat.

Polls opened at 08:00 am and is set to close at 05:00 pm Saturday.

EC’s vice chairman Ismail Habeeb told Sun that only 4,236 voters cast their ballots as of 11:00 am.

This includes 2,532 male voters and 1,704 female voters.

Over 51,000 voters have yet to cast their ballots.

“This is a low turnout,” said Habeeb.

“We hope more voters will show up after the afternoon.”

Habeeb said by-elections usually receive a voter turnout of 40 percent.

He said that the EC expects the turnout to increase to 30 percent by the time polls close.

Five candidates are contesting for Male’ mayor. They are:

• Shuaib Ali, independent
• Hussain Waheed, independent
• Aishath Azima Shakoor, People’s National Congress (PNC)
• Adam Azim, Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)
• Saif Fathih, the Democrats

Over 54,680 people are eligible vote in the elections.

Voters can check their registered polling center by sending an SMS with their national ID card and the keyword ‘VR’ to 1414.

The position of Male’ City mayor became vacant after President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu resigned to take office as the Maldivian president in November 2023.

Meanwhile, the three other seats at the council were vacated after councilors resigned to assume positions at the new administration. They are; Abdulla Nasir, who represented South Maafannu constituency; Adam Rameez, who represented Central Henveiru constituency; and Fathimath Shamnaz Ali Saleem, who represented South Henveiru constituency.