Jakarta Globe – AFP, Mohamed Visham, October 19, 2013
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| A Maldivian man walks during a heavy downpour in Male on October 19, 2013. (AFP Photo/ Ishara S.Kodikara) |
Male.
Police in the Maldives forced the postponement of Saturday’s presidential
polls, declaring the vote illegal and blocking ballot papers from leaving the
offices of the independent Elections Commission.
The
commission just hours earlier announced the vote would go ahead as planned
despite 11th-hour court challenges by two candidates who were expected to lose
to a former president.
“We
continued with preparations for voting, but the Maldives Police Service have
said no documents connected to the election can leave the commission’s
offices,” Commission Chairman Fuwad Thowfeek said in a statement.
“A new date
for elections will be informed later.”
Police
spokesman Abdulla Nawaz told AFP that they considered it was illegal to stage
the election in violation of a Supreme Court order that required all candidates
to approve electoral lists.
“Only one
candidate had signed the voter register and therefore it would have been a
violation of the Supreme Court guidelines for the election to go ahead,” Nawaz
said.
The supreme
court last week annulled the first round of voting on September 7, citing
irregularities— even though international observers said the polls were free
and fair— and ordered a re-run.
There was
no immediate reaction on the narrow streets of the rain-soaked capital island
Male. Few vehicles and people could be seen on the road as heavy monsoon
showers lashed the archipelago.
Former
president Mohamed Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party accused the government
of using the police to scuttle the vote.
“The coup
government through its police force has obstructed the EC from holding
presidential elections in contravention of the SC (Supreme Court) ruling,” said
MDP lawmaker Mariya Didi on Twitter.
Forty-six-year-old
Nasheed, who says he was ousted in a coup involving rogue elements in the
police last year, won 45.45 percent of the vote in September— short of the 50
percent threshold needed for outright victory.
The
election was meant to end political tensions that followed the controversial
downfall of Nasheed in February last year, but it has caused more instability
in a country that embraced multi-party democracy in 2008.
Nasheed,
the frontrunner, insisted Friday that the poll go ahead as planned, dismissing
the challenge by business tycoon Qasim Ibrahim, who came third in last month’s
aborted poll, and Abdullah Yameen, who was a distant second.
The police
announcement meant that the Elections Commission could not transport some
ballot boxes to remote islands in the archipelago of 1,192 coral islands, of
which 202 are inhabited.
The United
States and regional power India had called for the election in the tourist
paradise to go ahead without further obstacles. There was no immediate comment
from either after the latest developments.
Yameen, the
half brother of the islands’ long-time ex-ruler Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, won 25.35
percent in September’s poll and would have faced Nasheed in a run-off but the
decision to order a re-run allowed third-placed candidate Ibrahim to re-enter
the contest.
There has
been heavy international pressure to ensure the country chooses a new president
by November 11 in line with its constitution.
Gayoom
ruled the Maldives for 30 years until he lost the first democratic election in
2008 to Nasheed but observers say Gayoom’s supporters still control key levers
of power such as the judiciary and do not want to see Nasheed return to office.
India
dispatched Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh for talks with leaders Thursday to
ensure the elections went ahead.
Western
diplomats have also been following the unfolding events with alarm.
Outgoing
president Mohamed Waheed, who replaced Nasheed but is not running again, had
promised a smooth transition of power. He was humiliated in the September 7
vote, winning just over five percent of ballots.
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