EC asks to have High Court ruling on Veyvah vote overturned

Elections Commission (EC), too, has asked the Supreme Court to overturn a contentious High Court ruling that gave a seat in the L. Veyvah Council to a candidate from the ruling People’s National Congress (PNC) instead of one from the main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) who was originally declared the victor in the April elections.

MDP’s Ahsan Naeem had won a seat in the Veyvah Council after beating PNC’s Mohamed Nazeeh by a margin of just two votes in the local council elections on April 4.

Ahsan received 121 votes, while Nazeeh won 119.

Nazeeh contested the results with the High Court, which, on May 13, annulled three disputed ballot papers, which were all votes cast for Ahsan.

With the decision, Nazeeh was declared the winner with 119 votes, while Nazeeh had his votes cut down to 118.

Ahsan has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, contesting the ruling.

A three-member bench composed of judges Abdulla Hameed, Hussain Shaheed and Mohamed Saleem heard the case on Thursday.

At the hearing, legal representatives for both Ahsan and the EC asked to have the High Court ruling overturned, while Nazeeh asked the court to uphold it.

EC also said it was ready to submit the ballot papers to court if necessary.

The bench adjourned the hearing after announcing that if there wasn’t a need for any further clarifications, the next hearing would be to issue the ruling.

Nazeeh had reportedly not taken oath of office along with the rest of the councilors on May 17.

The High Court had made the decision by a majority consensus of two out of three judges on the bench. Judges Mohamed Shaneez Abdulla and Abdul Rauf Ibrahim, the latter of whom had run unsuccessfully on behalf of the PNC in the 2024 parliamentary elections, had decided in favor of invalidating the ballots, while Ibrahim Mahir decided there were no grounds to change the election results.

The EC had conducted a recount before Nazeeh had contested the results with the High Court. While both candidates each lost one vote, the recount did not change the victor