Elections commission on Saturday allayed concerns over the two dozen ballot boxes forced for a recount in last week's local council elections insisting that the recount so far does not seem to affect the result of the respective constituencies.
Commission member Ahmed Akram said the recounting and rechecking of the results was expected to be completed later Saturday.
"But we haven't found anything so far that can affect the result," Akram said.
The recount was prompted after the bar-code system had rejected some of the result sheets over some inconsistencies.
The commission had commenced the recount on Thursday in the presence of observers and monitors.
A total of 1,487 candidates had contested the elections for 664 seats including 563 councilors to 179 island councils, 67 councilors to 18 atoll councils and 23 councilors to three city councils.
Though 255,987 Maldivians were eligible to vote, voter turnout was reportedly much lower than expected despite the elections commission extending voting by two hours.
Main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) backed by the united opposition had secured more than half the seats including the constituencies with the largest populations.
