Sinan Hussain/Associated Press
A woman cast her vote on Saturday in Male, Maldives. If no candidate receives 50 percent of the votes, a runoff will be held on Sunday.
NEW DELHI — A third attempt to hold a presidential election in the tiny Indian Ocean nation of Maldives was thrown off course early Sunday, after an order from the Supreme Court delayed a runoff scheduled for that day.
Former President Mohamed Nasheed won the most votes in the presidential election on Saturday, around 47 percent — a commanding lead over his closest rival, but not enough to avoid a runoff. However, after receiving petitions requesting a delay, the Supreme Court ordered the Sunday vote suspended, recommending that it be held next weekend, said Hamid Abdul Ghafoor, an official in Mr. Nasheed's party.
It was the third time an election had been delayed by a court order, and was evidence of continuing turmoil in this fragile democracy, which elected its first president five years ago after 30 years of autocratic rule. Among Mr. Nasheed's rivals are candidates tied to the country's longtime leader, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, and important factions in the government remain loyal to the former government.
Mr. Ghafoor described the atmosphere on Sunday as one of "eerie calm," and said the vote would probably not take place.
"The people are confused," he said in a telephone interview. "Nobody knows what is going on, except that there are these benchmarks we can see for ourselves. Now we are in limbo. Some people think voting should go on at 11 a.m., as scheduled."
The court's order said that "all relevant state authorities are informed that today's election cannot take place," and that a runoff just one day after an election could undermine people's constitutional rights, reported The Press Trust of India, a news service. The order recommended delaying the runoff until next Saturday,
Mr. Nasheed's supporters, and many international players, protested the delay. Earlier Saturday, a State Department spokeswoman in Washington said it was "now imperative that the second round take place immediately and in line with elections commission directions in order to ensure the Maldivian people are led by an elected president of their choice."
The spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said it was "unreasonable and unacceptable for parties to continue to demand changes to an agreed election date" and warned that it would lead to instability. "Changing the goal posts is unfair to Maldivian voters," she said.
In second place in Saturday's election, with 30 percent of the vote, was Yaamin Abdul Gayoom, the brother of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the country's longtime autocratic leader.
Mr. Nasheed's party, the Maldivian Democratic Party, reported that the vote had proceeded "smoothly, without major incident," and urged that "the will of the people" be respected.
Mr. Nasheed resigned last year in what he described as a coup. In the first presidential election in September, Mr. Nasheed received by far the largest share of votes, 45 percent, but the Supreme Court annulled those results after one of the losing candidates said there were electoral violations. A second election, last month, was halted when police officers surrounded the election commission's offices in Male, saying they had received a court order not allow it to proceed because some candidates had not approved voter rolls.
Various countries — among them, Britain, India and the United States — issued strong statements before the latest election, saying they expected a transparent and free process. Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said the country's Supreme Court was "interfering excessively, and in doing so is subverting the right of Maldivians to freely elect their representatives."
R. K. Radhakrishnan, a journalist who has covered Maldives extensively, said none of the outside actors appeared ready to take an active role in the conflict — something that may be necessary to break the deadlock between the two main factions in Male. Elites, he said, are resisting a transfer of power because Mr. Nasheed has threatened to jail them. He said further rounds of voting were pointless unless the two factions negotiated.
"They are not willing to talk to each other, because no one in the international community is taking the time to make them talk," said Mr. Radhakrishnan, a senior editor at The Hindu.
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