In Gayoom’s regime vote rigging mars the elections: Nasheed

President Mohamed Nasheed has said that during the regime of the former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the results of the elections were marred by rigging the votes after taking the ballot boxes to different places.

“In the elections that I contested for the Male’ seat, the elections result was announced after keeping the ballot boxes in Aarah for three days,” he said.

President Nasheed said that he was sentenced to two years in prison for exposing the vote rigging of the then administration in an article published in a Sri Lankan newspaper. He said that many of the people who participated in the elections now claim that they were not allowed to independently vote but that it were the island chiefs who decided for them.

Meanwhile, Interim President of the opposition Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM), Gayoom raised questions to the Elections Commission in his reply to the letter forwarded to him by the President of the Commission requesting Gayoom’s clarification for his recent remark that “election results do not turn out the way people vote”.

“The statement ‘now the elections are conducted transparently in a just and fair manner unlike how it was conducted before’, does this mean that during my administration the elections were conducted unjustly? If that is the case, when and who and how and in which elections were the votes rigged?,” Gayoom said in his reply.

Gayoom said that he never said anything that raises concern over the integrity of the Elections Commission. He said that he only commented about the change in the elections regulations and about further works to be done to increase membership for his new party.

“Therefore, it is saddening that you twisted the meaning of what I said and used it against me in the media to lower my stature among the people,” the former President said.

Elections Commission also have announced to probe in to the alleged accusations thrown by former President Gayoom at the integrity and reliability of the commission to conduct credible, free and fair elections.

Chair of the Elections Commission, Fuwad Thaufeeg said that the commission always ensures free and fair transparent elections.