Maldivians to head for runoff election

Maldivians will head for a runoff presidential election between the incumbent president and his challenger on Sept 30, as none of the eight candidates secured more than 50 percent of the votes needed for an outright win on Sept 9.

The results came from the Elections Commission of the Maldives, or ECM. Mohamed Muizzu, candidate of the coalition of Progressive Party of Maldives and People's National Congress, and incumbent President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih have received the highest number of votes. The ECM said Muizzu led with 46.06 percent of the votes, and Solih with 39.05 percent.

According to the Maldives constitution, a candidate needs more than 50 percent of votes to win outright. If no candidate obtains such a majority, the top two candidates will go to a runoff.

According to the Maldives' government website, Solih, 61, commonly known as Ibu, has served as the 7th president of the Maldives since 2018, after defeating former president Abdulla Yameen.

Solih said on Sept 10 that he was seeking allies after finishing second in initial results on Sept 9.

Muizzu became the first-ever mayor of the capital Male to be elected directly by the city's residents in 2021.Before, he had also served as the governor of Maldives to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Maldives' electoral system allows the president, as both the head of state and government, to be elected for a maximum of two terms. In 2008, the country held its first-ever multiparty presidential election.

Ilyas Labeeb from the Maldivian Democratic Party, who got the third-highest number of votes, has not yet announced which of the top two candidates he will support in the runoff election.

The election kicked off on Sept 9, with voters electing the Indian Ocean archipelagic country's president for the next five years. Those votes were spread across 188 islands in Maldives and five countries overseas, reported the Hindu.com.

Voting started at 8 am and ended at around 4 pm local time, with over 570 polling stations set up for the election. "There have been no significant reports of unrest anywhere," Solih told reporters after casting his vote, as reported by AFP. "The election campaign activities had also proceeded very smoothly. There is unprecedented peace in the Maldives."

A total of eight candidates, including three independents, contested the poll, which is the greatest number in a presidential race in Maldives' history, according to local Raajje news website.

"The lower turnout compared to previous election is striking," Azim Zahir, a lecturer and research fellow in international relations and politics at the University of Western Australia in Perth, told Al Jazeera. He added this could mean "significant youth disillusionment with incumbent parties".

Xinhua contributed to this story.