Maldives former president demands election

Male:  The former president of the Maldives, Mohammad Nasheed, yesterday demanded new elections and vowed mass street protests if the new government did not relent, raising the prospect of a protracted crisis on the Indian Ocean islands famed as a beach paradise.

Nasheed was free despite an arrest warrant against him as diplomats including a UN envoy worked to forestall renewed violence after his removal this week, which he said happened at gunpoint in circumstances he described as a coup.

He demanded his successor, President Mohammad Wahid Hussain Manik, step down and hand power to the speaker of the parliament for two months, until a new presidential poll can be called. The next election was due in October 2013.

"Fresh elections are our bottom line and we are not relying on the international community for that, we are relying on the people of the Maldives," Nasheed told reporters. "The medicine here is on the streets, in strength."

Rain and cooler weather appeared to ease tension a day after the new government issued a warrant against Nasheed, who quickly returned to his roots as a street activist and dared police to arrest him.

But Nasheed said police and military were ransacking Addu atoll, a bastion of his supporters, and were dragging people out of their homes and beating those who belonged to his party, with rival party members helping to identify them.

"We are losing a country as we speak," he said, describing the attack as retaliation. Police said his supporters razed at least 20 government buildings on Wednesday night.

Earlier, Nasheed, speaking to Reuters in front of his family home in central Male, capital of the 1,200-island archipelago of 330,000 Sunni Muslims, said there had been no clarification on the status of his arrest warrant.

Call for calm

His increasingly defiant tone came as a host of diplomats flew into the archipelago to calm tensions.

He spoke after meeting an Indian foreign ministry delegation and before meeting UN Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Oscar Fernandez-Taranco.

Fernandez-Taranco, who arrived late on Thursday, joined Western governments, India and the Commonwealth in urging calm and dialogue.