COLOMBO, Sept 25: Maldives President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom won a landslide in parliament on Thursday that is likely to give him a sixth five-year term leading the most expensive tourist destination in the Indian Ocean.

Mr Gayoom, 65, won all 50 votes in the national parliament, or Majlis, in the first and the most decisive stage of the two-step election process which now requires him to seek public ratification at a national referendum in October.

President since 1978, Mr Gayoom was one of four candidates standing for the presidency of the atoll nation of 250,000 Muslims.

Parliamentary Speaker Abdullah Hameed wrote Mr Gayoom informing that he has been unanimously elected the sole candidate to face the referendum, a statement from Mr Gayoom’s office said.

At the previous referendum five years ago, Mr Gayoom won 90.9 percent of the popular yes vote, garnering 86,504 of the 95,168 ballots.

“The president was not at the parliament to witness the vote, but he is receiving well-wishers who are going to congratulate him,” a government official said when contacted by telephone.

Mr Gayoom’s election bid was marred by criticism from the London-based human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, which slammed him for his “systematic suppression” of dissent.

On the eve of the parliamentary vote Amnesty linked weekend rioting, which targeted government buildings in the Maldivian capital Male, to rights abuses which it said had caused simmering dissent in the tiny nation.—AFP