Male, Wednesday, October 08, 2008: Voting started on Wednesday in the Maldives’ first democratic Presidential Election, which sees the Indian Ocean archipelago choosing whether to replace Asia’s longest-serving leader.

In all, 208,000 people are eligible to vote, and the final result is expected on Thursday.

The polls pit incumbent President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, aged 71 and the islands’ strongman for the past 30 years, against five bitter rivals in a race seen as impossible to predict given an absence of reliable opinion polls.

Among Gayoom’s challengers is Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) founder Mohamed ‘Anni’ Nasheed - one of the President’s fiercest critics and a former Amnesty International prisoner of conscience.

If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote, a two person run-off will be held within 10 days.