Maldives president rejects Commonwealth vote deadline

Maldivian President Mohamed Waheed, who faces accusations of seizing power in a military coup, rejected Friday as "premature" the Commonwealth deadline to hold elections before the end of this year.

Waheed, who is on an official visit to Sri Lanka, said he was not against elections, but that the poll deadline set by the 54-nation Commonwealth could not be met because of constitutional impediments.

"Since they made the demand, these people (the Commonwealth) have come to their senses," Waheed told reporters in Colombo. "The Commonwealth has realised that they made a demand that cannot be met. It was a premature demand."

Waheed was vice president to Mohamed Nasheed who stepped down in February after weeks of street protests capped by a police mutiny. Nasheed later said he was forced out in a military coup.

The new president insisted Nasheed was not under duress to resign, and said the earliest a fresh vote could be held was July next year. He added he was "contemplating" running for re-election in the nation of 330,000 Sunni Muslims.

Nasheed has already been nominated by his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) as their choice in the poll.

Two weeks after the alleged coup, Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma urged Waheed and Nasheed to agree on a date for an election to be held before the end of 2012.

The European Union as well as the United States and neighbouring India have called for early elections to end the political turmoil in the Indian Ocean archipelago, which is better known for up-market tourism.

India had also engineered a behind-the-scenes truce between rival parties in the tiny nation to clear the way for an early vote.

Nasheed, the Muslim nation's first democratically elected leader who came to power in 2008, has refused to recognize the government, and has demanded early elections and a referendum to test the legitimacy of the new leadership.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/maldives-president-rejects-commonwealth-vote-deadline-161024862.html

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