Elections Commission (EC) president Ahmed Shareef has said that information regarding voters details for the upcoming presidential election has been leaked to ruling Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM).
Maldives electoral watchdog's president assured that the leak did not originate from the commission itself, and they were investigating the matter.
Shareef's comments come following surmounting complaints against the ruling party for apparently calling eligible voters to inquire about their re-registration decisions, and selected ballot stations.
Following a reporter's question about the matter, Shareef confirmed they have received similar complaints.
He assured the matter was serious and was currently investigated by the commission's complains bureau.
"While I was meeting with a few individuals who reached me with such complaints, some of them received these phone calls inquiring about their re-registration decision and the caller identified they were calling from ruling party's campaign office. So we seriously do suspect that information has been leaked to them [PPM]," Shareef explained.
To ensure that the leak did not originate from the commission's office, their IT department conducted a thorough assessment of all operating systems at the office. Their internal investigation proved that the data leak did not originate from the office systems, according to Shareef.
Out of the 95,739 re-registration applications submitted, the commission had accepted and processed 78,964 forms. From the submitted forms, a total of 5,626 applications were rejected due to insufficient or inadequate information.
EC confirmed the remaining 11,149 forms were repeat entries.
