Maldives presidential election will be held in September, the country\u2019s Election Commission chief said late on Friday, a week after the European Union and some Western nations urged the country to hold a transparent, credible poll.<\/p>\n
The Maldives, home to 400,000 people and best known as a tropical paradise for tourists, has experienced political unrest since Mohamed Nasheed, its first democratically elected leader, was forced to quit amid a mutiny by police in 2012.<\/p>\n
Maldives opposition leader and two Supreme Court judges have been arrested after the government declared a state of emergency. The charges against opposition leader Maumoon Abdul Gayoom include bribery and attempting to overthrow the government.<\/p>\n
Nasheed, the sole candidate in last week\u2019s primary election held by his Maldivian Democratic Party was convicted of terrorism charges in 2015 and sentenced to 13 years in prison after a controversial and widely criticised trial.<\/p>\n
Maldives police executing a court order last week disrupted the MDP\u2019s effort to pick Nasheed as its candidate for the election.<\/p>\n
Elections Commission chief Ahmed Shareef said the 2018 presidential poll will be held on Sept. 23 in \u201cthe most transparent and open\u201d manner.<\/p>\n
Shareef said observers from eight countries and the EU and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation would be invited.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnlike previous elections this election will be fully trusted by the people. We will not be withholding any information other than what we have to keep secret lawfully,\u201d he told reporters in Male.<\/p>\n
The election will be held amid widespread criticism of civil and political rights abuses by President Abdulla Yameen\u2019s government, with opposition leaders either in exile or behind bars, and a crackdown on media and activists.<\/p>\n
The opposition has accused the government of locking up most of its leaders who could challenge Yameen\u2019s bid to be re-elected for his second five-year term, a charge the government denies.<\/p>\n
Yameen\u2019s administration has rejected a demand by a UN human rights watchdog to let Nasheed stand for the presidential election.<\/p>\n
Shareef had earlier campaigned for Yameen\u2019s re-election prior to his appointment as the Election Commission chief, and the opposition has criticised him as a biased appointee to the commission, which is meant to be independent.<\/p>\n
In a tweet, Nasheed said: \u201cMDP primaries proved EC has zero credibility. EC must change to have a genuinely free, fair and inclusive election\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Elections Commission has declared last week\u2019s MDP referendum unlawful over Nasheed\u2019s ineligibility to run for office after being found guilty of ordering the abduction of a judge in March 2015.<\/p>\n
While President Yameen is seeking re-election for a second term, the opposition has held talks to field a common candidate.<\/p>\n
The Indian Ocean island chain has faced upheavals since February, when Yameen imposed a 45-day state of emergency to annul a Supreme Court ruling that quashed the convictions of nine opposition leaders, including Nasheed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maldives presidential election will be held in September, the country\u2019s Election Commission chief said late on Friday, a week after the European Union and some Western nations urged the country to hold a transparent, credible poll. The Maldives, home to 400,000 people and best known as a tropical paradise for tourists, has experienced political unrest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33680,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33681,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33679\/revisions\/33681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}