US says increasingly worried over Maldives election

The United States is increasingly concerned with the political situation in the Maldives as voters prepare to head to the polls this weekend in a long-delayed presidential election, a US official has said.
The United States and Britain have warned that failure to go ahead with the re-scheduled ballot will damage the Indian Ocean atoll nation and its fragile tourism-dependent economy.
Western and Indian diplomats have come to view the annulment of a first round of elections that took place on September 7 and police action to prevent a second vote on October 19 as deliberate moves to block opposition leader Mohamed Nasheed.

"We are watching with mounting concern some of the troubling trends that we see in the elections in the Maldives and we're heavily engaged in trying to ensure that in fact elections happen," said Nisha Biswal, the new assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia.
The Maldives' 2008 constitution, which ended 30 years of one-party rule by former autocrat Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, stipulates that a new president must be elected by November 11.
Nasheed swept to victory in the first round of elections on September 7 with 45 per cent of the vote and was the front-runner in a second round run-off against Gayoom's half-brother Abdulla Yameen scheduled three weeks later but halted by police action.

According to Biswal "the Maldivian people have expressed their desire for democratic process to unfold and we are working hard to impress upon all of the political leaders there why we think that that's in their interest."
Nasheed, the country's first elected president, resigned in February 2012 following demonstrations and a mutiny by security forces that he denounced as a coup.
The nation of 350,000 Sunni Muslims will face a power vacuum if no one is chosen to replace President Mohamed Waheed, who took over in 2012.