MALE: The former leader of the Maldives who was the front-runner in elections due this weekend called yesterday for nationwide protests after the archipelago’s Supreme Court suspended the vote.
Mohamed Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) asked supporters to join peaceful demonstrations, threatening more unrest in the troubled honeymoon destination that has faced more than a year and half of uncertainty.
Nasheed won the first round of voting on September 7 with 45.45 percent and faced a run-off contest on Saturday against Abdullah Yameen, the half-brother of the islands’ former autocratic ruler Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.
“I have been fortunate enough to get the support of 45 percent of the people in the first round of the presidential elections,” 46-year-old Nasheed said in an email. “The dictatorship cannot digest this and have used their cronies through their kangaroo courts to delay their ultimate defeat,” he added.
His opponent in the second round, Yameen, has said there was “nothing unconstitutional” in the Supreme Court’s order.
However, MDP spokesman Hamed Abdul Ghafoor said that the court decision had led to “immense instability and has the potential to trigger violence”.
The Supreme Court ordered the second round of voting to be delayed while it examined a complaint about alleged electoral fraud. The polls were seen as a test for the Maldives’ young democracy a year and a half after the violent ousting of Nasheed, the country’s first democratically elected president.
Afp
