Parliament Speaker Mohamed Nasheed has said on Saturday that he does not accept the preliminary results of the Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) primary election.
Nasheed's opponent, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, won approximately 62 percent of the votes counted so far. Over 35,000 MDP members were qualified to vote in the election to determine its presidential candidate for this year.
Some of the messages Nasheed received from various MDP messaging groups said that Nasheed was leading from most of the ballot boxes that has been counted so far. Nasheed said a big difference is observed because a few boxes had an unusually high number of votes.
MP Hassan Latheef, who works closely with Nasheed while campaigning, said they were still observing the polling stations closely and that Nasheed was leading most of the vote boxes.
MP Latheef alleged discrepancies in the vote, saying some ballot boxes had more votes cast than the number of people registered to vote for them. He had tweeted a photo showing the results sheet.
Even though Nasheed's team refuses to accept the results, President Solih's team is celebrating. Cabinet members and parliamentarians alike have already sent in their felicitations.