Muscat – Voting for municipal councils elections started at 7am on Sunday with over 30 per cent voting witnessed till afternoon.

This is the first time that voting is being conducted via mobile application ‘Intakheb’, and will continue until 7pm.

Over 165,000 eligible voters cast their votes till 12pm, of which 97,461 were males and 68,448 females.

According to the Ministry of Interior, 731,767 Omani voters will choose 126 representatives from 727 candidates, including 27 women in the third term of the Municipal Council.

Dr Shehab bin Ahmed al Jabri, a member of the main committee for the municipal council elections, said that the election process is witnessing a robust turnout. “There has been good turnout since the early morning,” he said.

Intakheb application has been designed according to high security standards. A voter is verified in a safe manner through AI facial recognition, besides reading his/her identity card electronically without any manual intervention.