(6 Sep 2013) A day before Maldives' second multi-party presidential election, the incumbent President and presidential candidate Mohamed Waheed Hassan insisted on Friday that the election will be free and fair, with a smooth transition to a new government no matter what the outcome.
Hassan was speaking in an interview with Associated Press Television News.
"I will assure that the transition is smooth whether I win or somebody else wins, government's full co-operation will be there. And we are very happy that independent, international observers are here. So, it will be completely transparent and free and fair," he said.
The Maldives - more than 1,100 islands scattered across the Indian Ocean - are sharply divided along political lines.
There is scant hope that Saturday's presidential elections will soothe the divisions that have inflamed the archipelago since last year, when former President Mohamed Nasheed resigned amid a standoff with security forces and widespread protests.
The nation had its first democratic presidential elections just five years ago, after 30 years of dictatorship under Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.
Most of its public institutions, from the police to the public service commission and the courts, are still widely seen as politically partisan, and it is believed that most government workers continue to support Gayoom.
The first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, insists Hassan - his former deputy - helped force him out in a coup d'etat.
The day after his resignation, Nasheed claimed he was forced to step down at gunpoint as part of a coup backed by Gayoom.
Nasheed, leader of the Maldives Democratic Party, told journalists on Thursday he believes "the perpetrators of the coup must be brought to justice".
But his stance was dismissed by the incumbent president in Friday's interview.
"No, he just wants to create a story, now that everybody is focusing on that today, just before the elections. And this is his way of, you know, taking people's attentions. I don't worry about it," Hassan said.
And Hassan defended his record in office, saying he has "not interfered unlike Nasheed".
"The judiciary is independent, the parliament is independent. I freed the media, the public media. Today, for the first time in Maldives, the last two years the government has not controlled the media," he said.
While there is little reliable polling in the Maldives, Nasheed and Yaamin Abdul Qayyoom, Gayoom's brother, are thought to be the two leading candidates.
Hassan is also running, but his party is smaller.
He was elected vice president in the first democratic election in an alliance with Nasheed.
A fourth candidate, Qasim Ibrahim, is a wealthy businessman.
The next president must form a credible government, build up public confidence in government institutions and deal with pressing issues including high unemployment, increasing drug addiction among young people and improving transportation among the far-off islands.
Nasheed and Gayoom hope to win in the first round by securing 51 percent of the vote. If no candidate wins 51 percent, the top two will face one another in second round of voting on September 28.
Some 240-thousand people are eligible to vote in Saturday's poll.
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