Elections Commission has said that 403 candidate forms for the upcoming Parliamentary elections have been received. The Commission has said that out of this, 395 forms have been accepted and that 8.6 per cent are those of women while 96 per cent are male candidates.

The Chairperson of the Elections Commission, Ahmed Shareef has said this at a press conference held to announce information regarding upcoming Parliamentary elections.

Shareef said that the 395 forms include 35 women and 360 men. That is, the percentage of women who submitted to run for Parliament are 8.73 percent while the percentage of men is 91 percent.

Additionally the Chairperson of the Elections Commission said that 71 of the candidates are over the age of 35 years, out of which 8 are women and 63 are men.

While there are 395 candidates competing for a total of 87 constituencies for the 19th Parliamentary body of Maldives, the assigning of candidacy numbers throw a draw will be held on 27 February. Shareef informed that the opportunity to apply for the position of representatives of the candidates will be open from 28 February until 7 March.

The Chairperson of the Elections Commission said that the chance to submit re-registrations were opened from 18 February and will continue until 2 March 2019. He noted that the people who will need to re-register are those that will be voting for a constituency that is different from what they voted in at the previous Presidential elections.

Additionally, Shareef reiterated that, compared to other elections, the task of finding representatives and officials for this upcoming Parliamentary elections have proven difficult.  As such, the Chairperson of the Elections Commission reported that the Commission has met with various government institutions and political.parties in search of possible representatives for the election.