Gayoom keeps leading in Maldives' presidential election
9/10/2008 17:25
As counting continues this morning, the Maldives' incumbent President
Maumood Abdul Gayoom is keeping his lead over other five candidates in the
Indian Ocean archipelago's first-ever multi-party presidential elections held
yesterday.
Figures from the Elections Commission showed that as of 9:30 am
(0430 GMT) Gayoom has taken 41.14 percent of the 63,379 votes counted so
far.
Gayoom, who has been the president since November 1978, ran for the
presidency again representing the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party ( Maldivian People's
Party).
He was followed by the Maldivian Democratic Party's (MDP) Mohamed
Nasheed, who has got 22.54 percent of the counted votes.
The remaining votes
were divided among the Jumhooree Party's ( Republican Party) Qasim Ibrahim
(18.08 percent), Independent candidate Hassan Saeed (16.09 percent), the Islamic
Democratic Party's Umar Naseer (1.31 percent) and the Social Liberal Party's
Ibrahim Ismail (0.83 percent).
The final result is expected to be announced
by the Elections Commission later today.
About 209,000 Maldivians were
eligible to vote from 9 am to 9 pm local time (0400 GMT to 1600 GMT) in the
country's 395 polling stations.
More than 1,000 local and foreign observers
monitored the voting and counting process. They have estimated the participation
rate at about 70 percent.
"The voting was peaceful. The only problem was that
some people didn't get registered and they went to the police headquarters in
Male to demonstrate," said Hugues Carpet yesterday evening, who observed the
voting process in at least five polling stations including some remote
islands.
The registration issue was sorted out later yesterday as the
Elections Commission allowed all eligible citizens who have National Identity
Cards to vote.
The counting started immediately after the polling stations
were closed.
According to the new constitution ratified by Gayoom in August,
the president shall be elected directly by the people and over 50 percent of the
votes are needed to be elected.
If no candidate obtains such majority, a
run-off election must be held within 21 days after the first election. It will
be contested by the two candidates receiving the highest number of votes in the
first election.
Most expect no candidate to secure 50 percent of the vote
initially, which would prompt a run-off round, the exact date has to be decided
by the parliament.
With a population of 300,000, the Maldives are a group of
1,192 islands scattered across 800 km of the Indian Ocean neighboring India and
Sri Lanka.
Supported by tourism, fishing and shipping, the 850 million-US
-dollar economy grew by 7.6 percent in 2007 and the Maldivian government expects
the economy to grow by 8.3 percent for 2008.
However, the IMF said the
economic growth would slow to 6.5 percent in 2008 and its inflation would double
to around 15 percent.
Xinhua
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