The Elections Commission of the Maldives (ECM) has announced that this year's presidential election recorded the highest number of invalid votes in comparison to previous elections. The preliminary results announced by ECM showed that 4,835 votes were deemed invalid, which is 2.14% of the overall votes.
Furthermore, the preliminary results showed that no candidate received 50% of the vote. As such, the preliminary results show that Dr. Mohamed Muizzu, the candidate of the People's National Congress (PNC), won 46.15% or 101,453 of the votes. His closest rival President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih from the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) received 39.09% or 85,920 votes.
The preliminary results also showed that the candidate of The Democrats Ilyas Labeeb received 7% votes, independent candidate Umar Naseer received 2% votes, and the candidate of the Jumhooree Party (JP) Qasim Ibrahim received 2% of the votes. Meanwhile, independent candidate Faris Maumoon received 1% of the votes, the candidate of the Maldives National Party (MNP) Mohamed Nazim received 0.86% of the votes, and independent presidential candidate Hassan Zameel received 0.15% of the votes.
In the preliminary results, ECM revealed that 79.85% or 225,486 individuals of the 282,395 eligible voters cast their votes. The number of valid votes was recorded at 220,651.