Maldives leader refuses to quit as official term ends

Maldives police clashed with hundreds of protesters on Monday after outgoing President Mohammed Waheed said he would remain in power after his term ended, defying the opposition-led Parliament and throwing the country deeper into crisis.

Waheed was to have stepped down by the end of Sunday, but when no candidate won the necessary 50 percent of votes in a long-delayed presidential election the previous day, the Indian Ocean archipelago was essentially left in constitutional limbo.

"Since the Constitution does not state what must happen, the Supreme Court has decided the government will continue instead of going into a constitutional void," Waheed declared overnight, just minutes before his tenure officially ended.

Parliament Speaker Abdulla Shahid, who is linked to the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party, told Waheed that he had no right to govern because his time in office had lapsed under the terms of the Constitution.

The country's controversial Supreme Court postponed a runoff presidential vote that could have elected a president on Sunday, a move slammed by the United States and likely to draw further international criticism.

"There is no other provision for extending the period of office of the president," the speaker said in a letter to Waheed.

He also informed other branches of the state that Waheed was no longer able to exercise the powers of a president.

When it blocked the runoff vote on Sunday, the Supreme Court said Waheed could continue to hold office until a runoff election is held on Saturday, six days after his term should have ended.

The court, dominated by judges named during 30 years of rule by then-president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, has blocked three attempts to elect a new leader for the Sunni Muslim nation of 350,000 people.

Mohammed Nasheed, the country's first democratically elected president who was ousted in February last year, is the front-runner to return to power. He has accused the court and Waheed of deliberately blocking him.

Nasheed led after the first round with 47 percent of the votes.

In 2008, Nasheed defeated Gayoom.

Gayoom loyalists, including a half-brother, who also ran in Saturday's vote, now oppose Nasheed's bid to return to power.

Nasheed's political party, which dominates Parliament, wanted one of its members to run the country until the second round of voting on Saturday. But in a tussle between Nasheed and the old guard he is seeking to replace, that decision was overruled.

Nasheed, famous for holding a Cabinet meeting underwater to highlight the threat of global warming to the low-lying archipelago, will contest the runoff vote against Gayoom's half-brother, Abdulla Yameen.

Reuters-AFP

(China Daily 11/12/2013 page11)