The polling authority informed that the ballot boxes for the upcoming parliamentary elections will be placed in Kerala’s capital, Trivandrum (Thiruvananthapuram), Sri Lanka’s Colombo, and Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur. 

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On Saturday, March 16, the six-day window that allowed citizens to relocate their voting stations for the April 21 parliamentary elections expired, as per media reports that cited Maldives’ Elections Commission notification. This decision came after around 11,000 Maldivians urged the top electoral body to relocate their polling stations and, therefore, submitted re-registration requests.

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The island nation’s secretary-general Hassan Zakariyya said, “As previously, enough people registered in Sri Lanka and Malaysia. And since 150 people had registered in Trivandrum, India, we have decided to set up a ballot box there,” reported web portal adadhu.com.

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Hassan Zakariyya noted that the number of people who re-registered this year is low compared to past elections. The EC official further mentioned that voting would not be held in the UK, UAE and Thailand.

The island nation’s polling authority received 11,169 application forms requesting re-registration at different voting stations during this period. The edition.mv news portal reported that the EC rejected 1,141 forms, bringing the total number of re-registrations to 10,028.

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The official election date was postponed following an amendment to an Act as the election date clashed with the month of Ramzan. Earlier, the parliamentary elections were scheduled to take place on Sunday, March 17, but they have now been postponed to April 21 to avoid conducting elections during the Ramzan.

In the upcoming elections for 93 parliamentary seats, a total of 389 candidates are contesting, the sun.mv news portal reported. The pro-India main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) is contesting for 90 seats, which has the highest number of candidates. The main ruling coalition of the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) and the People’s National Congress (PNC) is contesting for 89 seats.

(With inputs from PTI)

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Published: 18 Mar 2024, 10:32 AM IST