The Maldivian government yesterday said opposition protests cannot bring down the government, and vowed to maintain order in the Indian Ocean archipelago as protesters demonstrated over the faltering economy for a sixth day. More than 300 people have been arrested and scores injured since demonstrations on the main island started last Saturday, led by an opposition party headed by former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. A few hundred demonstrators gathered after Friday prayers in Republic Square in the Sunni Muslim nation’s capital, Male. Police issued warnings that demonstrators should leave, opposition spokesman Mohamed Hussain Shareef said. “The police and military have taken appropriate action to prevent any damage to public property, any damage to people and try and keep discipline and order,” Maldivian Foreign Affairs Minister Ahmed Naseem told reporters in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo. In an attempt to mimic popular protests in the Middle East and North Africa, the opposition has vowed not to quit until President Mohamed Nasheed steps down over rising prices and a managed float of the rufiyaa currency. The United States has urged the opposition to present its own plan to plug a widening budget deficit and shake off global price shocks if it does not agree with the government’s International Monetary Fund-backed plans. Naseem said the protests are “politically motivated” and blamed the opposition for failing to put forward anyone to negotiate with to end the unrest. The minster said the Maldivian government was working on an economic package to help ease rising living costs after days of violent street protests which have rocked the capital of Male.Nasheed’s government has accused a faction of the opposition allied to his political nemesis, Gayoom, of staging the protests and of throwing bricks and petrol bombs. The opposition says the government has set thugs loose to vandalise property. The opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), which ruled until Gayoom’s 30-year reign ended with Nasheed’s victory in the country’s first multi-party democratic election, in turn accuses the incumbent of turning autocratic. Nasheed won in 2008, after years of agitating for democracy under Gayoom’s autocratic rule, which saw him repeatedly jailed. The archipelago of more than 1,200 atolls located southwest of India and its $1.5bn economy rely heavily on fishing and tourism, which caters to wealthy travellers willing to spend as much as $1,000 a night in tropical hideaway resorts. Although usually peaceful, the nation of 400,000 Sunni Muslims has sporadic rowdy demonstrations, and has the twin problems of heavy unemployment and drug addiction among youth.