DhiFM presidential poll stopped after discovering irregularities

Saturday, October 4th, 2008

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The controversial presidential election SMS opinion poll conducted by leading private radio broadcaster DhiFM was stopped last night after DhiFM discovered several SMS messages have been received before the starting time and without the knowledge of owners of telephones. DhiFM has blamed national telecommunication service provider Dhiraagu for the manipulation which Dhiraagu has denied. Dhiraagu has said SMS messages sent by their customers have come from Australia. These SMS messages have started coming before 11pm last night which was the starting time of the poll.

Dhiraagu customers received messages saying " Thank you for your vote. DhiFM" Editor of Miadhu Online Mariyam Suhana said she had received the same message when she switched on her phone after keeping it off from 10 pm to 11 pm. " I will share my own experience, When I switched on my phone, the dates and time of all the messages I received tallied with Maldives. But the message I received from 600 thanking for my vote has come with the date of 4 October 2008 at 04.04 hours. Today being 3 October and all other messages I have received have today’s date and time, it goes with what is said by Dhiraagu", Suhana said.

Dhiraagu said messages sent in last night’s DhiFM poll have not come from their system. When Miadhu Online asked Dhiraagu how this could happen, they replied these things can be done through websites. Dhiraagu also stated they have proof these messages were sent from Australia.

DhiFM has invited a team of leading journalists to their station every week during the time time of the poll to witness the process for ensuring its transparency. DhiFM Chief Executive Ibrahim Khaleel has said Dhiraagu must take responsibility for the irregularity last night. Khaleel also said Dhiraagu has assured DhiFM during their discussions with Dhiraagu senior officials before the poll was organised there will be no external manipulation. Dhiraagu has said there can be a technical problem and if there were such a problem it will arise from the Dhiraagu system Khaleel added.

DhiFM presidential race opinion poll of the past four weeks has become a very controversial issue and has come under severe criticism from some political parties. There are accusations, DhiFM SMS poll is taking the side of some of their preferred candidates and it is not an impartial poll. The government party lead by President Gayoom has lashed DhiFM for carrying out a bias poll where the actual number of the large number of their supporters were not reflected. DRP has said 12,000 of their supporters have voted for their leader President Gayoom last week, but the result showed only 2000 votes for Gayoom. DRP has warned they are consulting with their lawyers on the matter. Billionaire turned presidential candidate Gasim’s Ibrahim’s JP and SLP have also criticised DhiFM and said they do not want to participate in the poll. Khaleel who is one of the most experienced professionals in broadcasting, said they have no doubts about the reliability of the poll, but the poll is not being conducted to determine the result of the presidential election. He said the poll only reflects an idea of the popularity of candidates and enthusiasm of their supporters.

In the last three polls, MDP’s presidential candidate Mohamed Nasheed, Anni has taken a big lead while the DRP’s Gayoom and independent Hassan Saeed won second and third places. JP’s Gasim Ibrahim came fourth receiving much less than Anni, Hassan and Gayoom.

There are reports supporters of candidates have bought large numbers of Sims to gain more support for their candidates.

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