Henveiru Hulhangu MP Hassan Latheef, interim chairman of The Democrats, has been elected as the party’s President, according to results announced 24 hours after the party’s first internal elections on Saturday.
The results were announced at a press conference on Sunday night by Medhu Henveiru MP Ali Azim, the party’s parliamentary group leader.
Hassan Latheef won the election with 1,704 votes. His opponent Hussain Amr, former managing director of the State Trading Organization (STO) during the previous government, trailed with 1,300 votes. There were 50 invalid votes, Azim said.
Azim also announced the officials elected to other leadership posts in Saturday’s election.
Aishath Alaika Annan was elected as the party’s Vice President (female), Hassan Firushan was elected as Vice President (youth) and Fathmath Hamdha was elected as Women’s Leader. Mohamed Masih was elected as the Youth Leader of The Democrats.
Azim only announced the results for these posts on Sunday night. Winners of other posts and individual results from islands would be announced later, he said.
Voting took place from 10 am to 4 pm on Saturday and party members expressed displeasure over the failure to reveal preliminary results or make any official announcement regarding the election.
After polls closed, both Hassan Latheef and Amr declared victory in social media posts.
Some 5,835 members were eligible to vote in the internal election of The Democrats.
