While the successful conduct of peaceful polls in the Maldives has garnered global attention, few know that many of the polling officers were trained in an Indian academy for foreign election managers

New Delhi: The Election Commission of India (ECI) has expressed satisfaction on the constructive role it played in the recently concluded elections in the Maldives, an archipelago nation in the Indian Ocean region, by training their election staff.

"The Election Commission of India had set up the India International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Management (IIIDEM) in the year 2011. We have already conducted almost 50 programmes for foreign election managers from election management bodies of around 20 countries. And, in fact, you will be surprised to know that in the run-up to the recently concluded elections in the Maldives, we took pride in training the country's election managers at IIIDEM," Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of India O P Rawat said in an exclusive interaction with Sputnik.

With encouraging results from IIIDEM, the ECI has recently developed a new campus for the institution at a cost of around $17.2 million. India trains election officers for countries with which it has a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the subject.

"Most of the countries with which we have MoU are African democracies, European democracies, Australia, New Zealand, and some Latin American countries. We try our best to ensure that whatever reputation we have earned globally is maintained and enhanced," Rawat added speaking to Sputnik.

​The Election Commission of India, the apex body for election management, conduct and regulation in the country is led by three senior bureaucrats.