Meanwhile, Nasheed party - MDP - demanded a caretaker

government to conduct up coming elections and end political tension in the islands. The former Foreign Minister Ahmed Naseem said the Maldives should end political instability to avoid being used as a base for Islamic extremists to destabilise the region. "We want elections under a caretaker who must take over two months before the actual polling," Naseem, who is on a visit to Sri Lanka, told reporters in Colombo. The Maldivian government has announced elections on September 7. Naseem said a boycott by the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), the largest single party in the archipelago of 330,000 Sunni Muslims, will undermine the legitimacy of any election. "Three international shipping lanes go through our country and it is important for regional peace to have a stable government in the Maldives," Naseem said.