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Nashed has accused the new leadership of bad
faith, claiming that they have no intention to relinquish power and are, in
fact, working to entrench themselves. The new government, however, had repeatedly
reassured the nation that elections would be held in 2013.
While majority of Maldivians are hoping that the
new government makes good on its promise, the more progressive groups are optimistic
that the leadership goes one step further and takes the Maldives elections to
the digital age as to assure that the coming national elections are free and
fair.
There are hopeful signs that e-voting could
happen soon in the Maldives. According
to various reports, the Maldives Elections Commission (MEC) is already seriously
looking into the possibility of using the electronic voting machines (EVM's) from
India for its next elections.
Fuad Thaufeeq, who heads the MEC,
said the Indian-made voting machines could be suitable for the country with
proper enhancements in the law.
“So far, we have been getting information from many countries in Europe,
South America and Asia which have used these. Regionally, India, Nepal,
and Bhutan have used the machines and we are also getting advice from them.
Hopefully the system will work, but some laws will have to be changed and the
public must support the decision,” said Thaufeeq.
As a matter of fact, India had
offered Maldives a few hundred EVM's several years ago. Maldives, however,
refused it at that time, saying that the timing wasn’t right yet as the Indian-made
machines still had no printing capabilities.
In addition, there were alarming claims made by University of
Michigan researchers that they were able to manipulate results simply by
sending text messages from a mobile phone to the machines.
As expected, Indian election
officials vehemently contested such claim averring that their machines are some
of the most tamper-proof EVM's in the world.
