Male:
Former president Mohamed Nasheed demanded the Maldives' presidential polls take place as scheduled on Saturday despite a warning by organisers that it could be halted by a dispute over the electoral roll.
Nasheed is the frontrunner for the election re-run, which was ordered by the Supreme Court when it annulled the results of a first ballot on September 7.
Nasheed topped last month's abortive contest although he fell short of the 50 percent threshold needed for outright victory.
"There is nothing wrong with the lists. The elections commission is obliged to hold the elections," Nasheed told reporters Friday after meeting Fuwad Thowfeek, the commission's chairman.
Thowfeek had earlier warned that the vote may not be able to go ahead as two other candidates had failed to endorse an official list of voters.
The Supreme Court in its controversial annulment of the September 7 election ordered that all candidates must approve the electoral roll.
Only Nasheed had complied by Friday afternoon, with just a few hours left before polling stations were due to open.
"I refuse to give up hope," said Nasheed, who became the archipelago's first democratically elected president in 2008 only to be toppled last year after a police mutiny.
The Maldives has been under intense international pressure to hold the elections and end the political tensions that have gripped the nation of 350,000 Sunni Muslims since Nasheed's downfall in February 2012.
There was no immediate comment from the other two candidates, Abdullah Yameen and Qasim Ibrahim.
However election officials said they were unable to contact either man to get them to sign off on the list of some 239,000 voters.
Nasheed is the frontrunner for the election re-run, which was ordered by the Supreme Court when it annulled the results of a first ballot on September 7.
Nasheed topped last month's abortive contest although he fell short of the 50 percent threshold needed for outright victory.
"There is nothing wrong with the lists. The elections commission is obliged to hold the elections," Nasheed told reporters Friday after meeting Fuwad Thowfeek, the commission's chairman.
Thowfeek had earlier warned that the vote may not be able to go ahead as two other candidates had failed to endorse an official list of voters.
The Supreme Court in its controversial annulment of the September 7 election ordered that all candidates must approve the electoral roll.
Only Nasheed had complied by Friday afternoon, with just a few hours left before polling stations were due to open.
"I refuse to give up hope," said Nasheed, who became the archipelago's first democratically elected president in 2008 only to be toppled last year after a police mutiny.
The Maldives has been under intense international pressure to hold the elections and end the political tensions that have gripped the nation of 350,000 Sunni Muslims since Nasheed's downfall in February 2012.
There was no immediate comment from the other two candidates, Abdullah Yameen and Qasim Ibrahim.
However election officials said they were unable to contact either man to get them to sign off on the list of some 239,000 voters.
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