The Maldives yesterday chose July 2013 for a presidential election, spurning calls for early polls and risking more protests by supporters of former president Mohamed Nasheed, overthrown in what he calls a coup on the tropical atoll nation. Current President Mohamed Waheed, who served as vice president under Nasheed, says his predecessor resigned voluntarily after protests triggered by the arrest of a judge. He said July 2013 was the earliest polls could be held. “President Waheed is fully committed to strengthening democratic processes in the Maldives and has called for elections in July 2013, the earliest date permitted under the constitution,” his office said in a statement. Waheed had earlier said that the election could not be conducted anywhere before October 2013. Following the victory at last week’s byelection for two constituencies, Waheed said he was confident in calling the Indian Ocean archipelago to a vote at the earliest constitutionally mandated time. Nasheed says he was forced to resign at gunpoint on February 7. He calls the current government a “dictatorship” and has led mostly peaceful protests since his ouster. “We need to have an election in 2012, if not, skewing of the playing field and entrenchment of the dictatorship will happen,” he told Reuters in New Delhi. “There will be conflict, there will be disturbances, there will be instability if we don’t have an election,” he said in an interview during a trip to seek stronger support for his cause from India, which recognises the new government. Political turmoil in the Maldives may affect its mainstay tourism industry that draws guests from around the world to remote resort locations that can cost several thousand dollars a day. It also sits on busy shipping lanes and has increasingly become a target for Somali pirates. Nasheed, the country’s first democratically elected leader, is backed by the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) who on Monday reiterated an early election in 2012 and also claimed the Commission of National Inquiry, which was set up to inquire into the controversial power transfer from Nasheed to Waheed, was not independent and impartial. It urged the new government to review the commission immediately to make it genuinely independent, credible and impartial. In response, Waheed has welcomed the Commonwealth to assign a judge to advise and assist the Commission of National Inquiry. Meanwhile, the Maldives Democratic Party led by Nasheed yesterday welcomed the recommendations of the CMAG and asked Waheed’s regime to consider these seriously and take steps to remedy the situation within the next few days. Reuters/IANS