Opposition candidate confirmed as next Maldives president
Election commission said it received death threats and delayed the vote to allow time for legal challenges
The shock winner of the Maldives’ leadership vote was declared president-elect on Saturday, with election authorities saying they received death threats to delay the final announcement of strongman Abdulla Yameen’s decisive loss.
Common opposition candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih won last week’s election with 58.4 per cent of the ballot, or 134,705 votes, election commission chief Ahmed Shareef confirmed.
The commission released what it called “interim results” on Monday, but the official outcome of the September 23 polls was pushed back to allow legal challenges over the vote’s conduct.
“There were accusations … against all five members of the commission, and we received death threats via phone calls, Shareef said. “But we didn’t consider the threats at all because the security forces are providing all five members with security.”
Constitutionally the commission had until Sunday to announce the final result. He said there were “minor disparities” involving just one ballot paper out of 233,889 votes cast.
