Maldives troops to uphold poll results
: The police and military in the Maldives said on Wednesday they will uphold the result of an election in which opposition leader Ibrahim Mohamed Solih beat President Abdulla Yameen.
The statements, which boost Solih, come after Yameen’s party requested a delay in the publication of final results.
Yameen conceded defeat on Monday, a day after the election commission said he lost by more than 16 percentage points.
Yameen, who will be president until November 17 according to the Constitution, has jailed political opponents and cracked down on dissent.
Three sources close to Solih told Reuters the request from Yameen’s Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM) to have the official result delayed beyond the September 30 deadline could be an attempt to have the election result annulled.
“PPM has raised some concerns and asked the commission to delay the announcement of the official results,” Elections Commission chief Ahmed Shareef said.
He said the deadline for issuing final results was Sunday and the commission had not decided on the PPM request. “The commission has not been briefed on the nature of the complaints yet but there are allegations of fraud from what I understand,” he said.
PPM officials did not respond to requests for comment.
In response, the military and police forces said in near-identical statements they would uphold the result.
“We were worried but now we feel comfortable (because the) security forces are going to stand with the will of the people,” said Ahmed Mahloof, a spokesman for Solih’s coalition.
PPM spokesman Ahmed Nihan told Reuters it had not requested a delay or decided to challenge the results in court, while spokesmen for the high court and the Supreme Court said they had not received requests from the PPM to delay results.