17 October 2018
Update
The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to call Yameen’s three secret witnesses who would confess to conspiring with Elections Commission chief Ahmed Shareef to tamper with ballots. But the full bench ruled unanimously the witnesses were inadmissible.
The Supreme Court has now ended the hearings and will deliver its verdict on an unspecified future date.
15 October 2018
Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) led by President filed a complaint with the Supreme Court claiming the vote in the recent election was rigged. Preliminary hearing is continuing at Supreme Court to decide on the merits of complaint.
PPM lawyer, Mohamed Saleem, has accused the printer of coating ballot papers with an unnamed substance to make ink marks for Yameen disappear. Saleem said a “special pen with disappearing ink” had been given to people who were going to vote for his client, a reporter at the hearing said. If this is true, then all of Yameen’s vote should have disappeared and those ballot papers would be blank. It is now for the election commission to say how many such blank ballot papers were found in the election.
Maldives Police has halted its investigations into the various money-laundering accusations raised against outgoing President Abdulla Yameen. This follows the removal of former Acting Commissioner of Police Abdulla Nawaz and appointment of Assistant Police Commissioner, Hamdhoon Rasheed as the head of the police force.
The United States and the European Union have threatened sanctions if the elections were not free and fair. But Yameen is not concerned about this threat. NDTV reported.
