Police in the Maldives have forced the postponement of presidential polls in the Indian Ocean country, declaring the vote illegal and blocking documents from leaving the offices of the independent Elections Commission.
The commission just hours earlier announced the vote would go ahead on Saturday as planned despite 11th-hour court challenges by two candidates.
"We continued with preparations for voting, but the Maldives Police Service have said no documents connected to the election can leave the commission's offices," Commission Chairman Fuwad Thowfeek said in a statement.
"A new date for elections will be informed later."
Police spokesman Abdulla Nawaz said that they considered it was illegal to stage the election in violation of a Supreme Court order that required all candidates to approve electoral lists.
"Only one candidate had signed the voter register and therefore it would have been a violation of the Supreme Court guidelines for the election to go ahead," Nawaz said.
The supreme court last week annulled the first round of voting on September 7, citing irregularities - even though international observers said the polls were free and fair - and ordered a re-run.
Former president Mohamed Nasheed, who says he was ousted in a coup involving rogue elements in the police last year, won 45.45 per cent of the vote in September - short of the 50 per cent threshold needed for outright victory.
The election was meant to end political tensions that followed the controversial downfall of Nasheed in February last year, but it has caused more instability in a country that embraced multi-party democracy in 2008.
Nasheed, 46, the frontrunner, insisted on Friday that the poll go ahead as planned, dismissing the challenge by business tycoon Qasim Ibrahim, who came third in last month's aborted poll, and Abdullah Yameen, who was a distant second.
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