Male:
Maldives faces the prospect of a constitutional crisis after one of the main political parties warned it may not endorse plans to restage aborted elections next month.
Following an international backlash over the last-minute cancellation of an election scheduled for last weekend, the Elections Commission announced late Monday that a new poll would be held on November 9.
Commission chairman Fuwad Thowfeek also said in a post on Twitter that a run-off would take place on November 16 if no candidate won more than 50 percent of votes.
Although supporters of the frontrunner Mohamed Nasheed welcomed the announcement, a key ally of his rival Abdullah Yameen branded the commission as "arrogant".
Youth Minister Mohamed Shareef also said the commission had failed to address doubts about the electoral roll that helped scupper the weekend vote.
"We are certainly heading for a constitutional crisis. I don't know what will happen at that stage," said Shareef, a senior member of Yameen's Progressive Party of Maldives.
"From day one, we have supported the election, but the problem is the question of transparency," Shareef told AFP.
In particular, Shareef said he was worried about the security of the computer system which had compiled the list of around 240,000 voters who should determine the fate of a country best known as a honeymoon destination.
"We have to be assured about security of the server. If someone manipulates a few thousand votes, it can have a big impact in a small country like ours," he said.
"If the Elections Commission wants to, these issues can be sorted out in a couple of days. But they are arrogant. If the guidelines of the Supreme Court are not honoured, we can't support the election."
Yameen, who is the half-brother of the Maldives' long-time leader Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, was a distant second to Nasheed in a first round of voting held across the Indian Ocean archipelago on September 7.
But the Supreme Court annulled that result earlier this month following allegations of irregularities in the voter lists, even though foreign monitors gave the polls their approval.
By stipulating that all candidates must approve the voter lists, the court effectively gave Nasheed's challengers carte blanche to block a future vote which they were sure to lose.
And when neither Yameen nor the third candidate refused to endorse the voter roll, police declared last weekend's vote illegal despite the protests of the Elections Commission.
Nasheed has been attempting a comeback after winning the islands' first democratic elections in 2008 only to be toppled last year following a police mutiny.
Key institutions, such as the police and judiciary, are still run by followers of Gayoom who had ruled with an iron fist for three decades.
The United Nations and the European Union were among those who joined widespread condemnation of the decision to cancel Saturday's vote.
The EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in a statement warned that failure to hold credible elections will damage Male's relations with international partners.
"Further instability would also damage the country's economy and its relations with its international partners," she warned.
However, outgoing President Mohamed Waheed defended the decision to abort the poll.
He said an election where only one out of three candidates had approved the voter lists could have led to unrest and bloodshed in the nation of 350,000 Sunni Muslims.
"An election by force will only cause bloodshed. I will not allow that," he told reporters.
"No matter what the international community says, and no matter what political parties say, my utmost responsibility today is Maldivian citizens' security.
"People of our country are not any less capable or less educated than those in other countries, even the Western countries. They cannot come and tell us what to do."
Nasheed, 46, has accused Waheed of being a puppet of the former dictator Gayoom.
While Nasheed has yet to react to the announcement of the new polls, one of his main allies welcomed the move.
"I have faith in the elections commission to conduct the election to international standards," said former foreign minister Ahmed Naseem.