The eighth presidential election will commence at 7 am this morning with a record 35 candidates contesting from across the political spectrum.

More than 15.9 million registered voters out of 21.8 million are eligible to vote in the election. The voting will conclude at 5 pm.

A total of 60,175 police officers have been deployed for today’s election, Police said.

In addition, 8,080 Civil Defence personnel would also be deployed on election duty from today.sources said.

Local and international election observers have also fanned out across the country.

The People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) said that it would be deploying 4,000 observers to monitor the election.

The European Union has deployed over 80 observers while the Commonwealth and other foreign groups are also in the country to observe the poll.

The first result can be expected by midnight on Saturday, Election Commission

The sources said that the total cost of the election could exceed Rs.7.5 billion. He said it was now clear that 18 of the candidates who had entered the contest were supporting either of the two main candidates.

Commission sources said 12 official foreign observers of the Election Commission, including Indians, Maldivians, Indonesians and South Africans were now in the country. Another 100 foreign observers were in the country representing the European Union, another 10-12 observers from the Commonwealth and another seven foreign observers were here on a study tour.