Third-placed candidate in Saturday’s presidential elections, Gasim Ibrahim, has announced that he will not accept the results released by the Elections Commission (EC).
“I am saying I believe I was in first place,” said Gasim at a press conference this afternoon. “Different result reports on different media shows there were many, immense issues.”
His Jumhoree Party (JP) is disputing the election following rumours that 10,100 additional votes appeared on the results published in a number of media outlets on polling day.
Vice President of the EC Ahmed Fayaz today maintained that the EC did not consider the complaints credible, describing them as “ridiculous” and “baseless”.
According to the provisional results Gasim received 24.07 percent of the votes, narrowly losing the position of runner up to Abdulla Yameen with 25.35 percent. The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) placed first with 45.45 percent of the vote.
At today’s press conference, Gasim alleged that the EC had recommended the JP take the case to court after refusing to provide information that the party is legally entitled to.
“In some boxes, there were lots of discrepancies in numbers of eligible voters, votes cast, invalid votes,” said Gasim, whilst running-mate Dr Hassan Saeed argued that the voter lists included deceased persons and children.
“If they aren’t guilty, they should clarify offer clarifications already,” said Gasim.
JP spokesperson Ibrahim Khaleel told Haveeru earlier today that, despite approaches from other parties, Gasim had not yet held talks regarding a coalition with either of the parties through to the second round.
Commonwealth observers have praised the voter registry as “accurate and robust”: “Fears expressed by some political parties regarding possible large numbers of deceased voters and voters registered in the wrong geographic area seem to be unfounded, based on the low incidence of election day complaints,” the group stated, in its interim statement released this afternoon.
Lessons to be learned
Fayaz explained that the EC was still in the process of re-checking all votes, anticipating that a final result may be confirmed tomorrow.
Asked about the confusion over the voting figures, Fayaz criticised local media’s role in the confusion.
“Politicians and newspapers have reported this [10,000 votes issue]”, he said, singling out the online publication Times.mv for particular criticism.
Fayaz urged all media outlets to carefully check their information before publication, though he did acknowledge that the EC’s own website was a source of concern.
“We wanted to share real-time results but the system did not function properly – many got misleading information from our website,” he said, assuring that the problem would be fixed before the second round.
Revealing its election observations today, the Commonwealth observer acknowledged issues related to the “private media”.
“We have to highlight this point as an area where the authorities in the Maldives should in the future sit down and see where improvements can be made. In this context the role of the Broadcasting Commission we consider to be extremely important,” said mission head Lawrence Gonzi.
“Similarly, it is important for the institutional set up to be clear on who is responsible for what. Should this be dealt with by the Elections Commission or Broadcasting Commission, and does the law empower them to redress an imbalance and what solutions are put forward?” he continued.
Drawing other conclusions from the first round, Fayaz singled out the performance of certain election officials as an issue that would need addressing.
“Some elections officials were too slow during the first round. Some will need re-training and some will need replacing,” he explained.
Upon hearing the rumours of unexplained votes after the closing of polls, a group of demonstrating JP supporters delayed the EC’s announcement of the provisional result early on Sunday morning (September 8).
The small but vocal group called for the resignation of EC Commissioner Fuwad Thowfeek, who – when finally able to announce the provisional results – dismissed the possibility of this many anomalous votes.
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boo hooo waaaaa
they stole my vote..mummmy!
waaaa..
I wanna have my vote fraud thaupig
He's finally lost his marbles! Saeed is a cunning b***rd; he's fooling the sad old man and like a blood sucking leech, sucking every single dollar that Gasim earned.
Sad that a man like Gasim had come to this. He should accept defeat with grace and thank the people who actually voted for him. Gasim, it's time to move on and get rid of the leeches.
"We wanted to share real-time results but the system did not function properly..."
The EC should really be able to design their web service to handle the load of a small country like the Maldives. There's less than 500,000 people interested in these results on a real-time basis.
At peak load, I'd guess that EC would probably be getting 10s of thousands of requests per second. A properly designed modern web service won't even break a sweat at those rates. C'mon guys, harden the f**k up will you?
Gasim, my friend. You lost; now do us all a great favour and just go away - like, disappear, maybe to Pantai Cinta Berahi in Kelantan, Malaysia, and indulge yourself in some "cahaya bulan". That is a wonderful aphrodisaic for fallen self-made heroes.
I am the President. I did not contest, but by God, I thought about it and that makes me the President next term!
Had I contested I would have won 200,000 votes. I will make sure the judges, of whom I have the control by way of sex-videos, also vouch that I was thinking about contesting!!!
Hahahahahah...
Gasim, bachchaa. The blood sucking leeches are draining you of life and mind. Get a grab hold of yourself.
You can only buy so much Gasim... On this occasion you did not quite have enough money!
Boo hoo hoo.....
It's one thing if he had said he believes himself to have second place, but the audacity of the man! Enough said.
Gasim still cannot see all those leeches sucking, and draining him out!
I know what Gasim is up to. This is clearly a ploy to delay the September 28th second round in order to buy time. The whole thing is an orchestration by the gang of three who lost on Saturday.
Gasim, who until a few weeks ago had the judiciary under his fist, now intends to call upon his mates for a favour. The reason why Gasim turned a blind eye towards Ali Hameed's filthy adultery in front of the whole world should be crystal clear to everyone now. The judiciary is the last card Gasim and the band has to play.
This will all blow up in the face of Gasim and his allies. The Maldivian people are no longer fools as was clearly demonstrated last Saturday. The people are watching this very carefully. We all know how Gasim turned a blind eye to the likes of Ali Hameed. We can all see his wrath being unleashed on the poor old Elections Commissioner who has done nothing wrong. There is always a day of reckoning...
This is all good news to me. It proves that the opposition to MDP is insincere and disunited.
Both Gasim and Yameen expected to come in second and have the third place candidate back them in the second round. Yameen with the support of Gayoom loyalists (over 30,000 votes) could afford to allow Gasim to take the lead in campaigning during the first round, knowing full well that Gasim would only poach votes from MDP leaning voters, ensuring MDP never made it "ehburun".
However Gasim was too successful and a tantalising 3000 vote difference was too much. Considering how quickly the MDP led coalition unravelled in 2008 post elections, even Gasim knows that the spoils will be for the winners. Hyenas and vultures like Hassan Saeed, Adaalath party and Umar Naseer have pounced on the opportunity to milk the disillusioned man of as much cash and dignity by encouraging him in this hair brained endeavour to challenge the vote in court.
However if Yameen fails in the second round he has only himself to blame. He expected Gasim to come grovelling to him, when the fact of the matter is that it is he who needs help getting re elected. Yameen was flippant, disrespectful and arrogant to toward Waheed and Gasim during the press conference. He even insinuated that those who voted for JP were PPM voters who were turned by Gasim with gifts and cash, not the wisest of his statements.
I don't think we should feel sorry for this man. We are responsible and should be held responsible for what we do. Gasim has always done what he pleases without any thought about the consequences of his actions.
Look at the judiciary. Look at the way he forces his workers to vote for him. He wants to be a great philanthropist, but he helps people only to enhance his reputation. This is not real giving.
Too little moral courage, too needy and now, too mad to be a leader of a nation. Yaamin would lose votes by uniting with him against Nasheed.
Agree 100% with Angagatha Mithuru
@Angagatha Mithuru on Tue, 10th Sep 2013 8:07 AM
"He wants to be a great philanthropist, but he helps people only to enhance his reputation."
Very true. A philanthropist never boasts about their work and that's the nature of philanthropy. With Gasim, it's different; he likes to shout at the top of his voice about how he helps people.
Well, looks like Hassan Saeed has done his magic once again and sunk another ship. Now he's trying to put the final nail in the coffin by making sure that the boss drowns too. But the real reason why Gasim is dancing like a brat is to delay the elections. The rest is just an excuse.
Breaking News::::: Maldives getting ready for the next Coup before the 28th September elections…
once the yahoodhee president gets back on the grip again, this small nation, the named muslim nation , and the muslim outfit wearing women would dominates over men and starts to marry men and devorce them as they want ,and extra free husbands and boyfriends for pleasure will increase. and finally the Hell will be occupied with more women from a muslim named nation.
I laughed at that last comment.
First of all, learn proper English.
Second of all, that's not very nice calling a fellow muslim "yahoodhee", and whats more, it is very much Haraam according to the Holy Qur'an and the Holy Prophet's(PBUH) Sunna'h.
You'd know if you were a true muslim. Or are you simply a "named muslim" as you so like to call your brothers and sisters.?
I did sympathies with Gasim but not any more. He spent on the coup and now he is trying make this country into a second Afghanistan. And what what is Maumoon talking about it was him who sent letter asking the Emme mathee Majlis not to take any action against people who preach other religions and it was during his time the Bible was translated and his photographer changed his religion. Now at his age he is dividing this nation by his desire to lead a posh life. When he was in power whenever he went to the Atolls or to an a international conference he would spend a week or two in Singapore to rest . The government paid your bills but he talks about others as though he is as clean a piece of white cloth. Rubbish. Can't he retire with all his medals and leave us alone.
Now