Maldives appoints new leader

His party called it a bloodless coup.

Former President Mohamed Nasheed was forced to resign on Tuesday and was later freed from military custody. His deputy, Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik, was sworn in by the speaker of the People's Majlis, or parliament.

On Wednesday, just 24 hours after police joined opposition protesters in attacking the military headquarters and seizing the state TV station, the streets of the capital island, Male, were calm as people went to work and children to school.

The political tumult, like most of everyday Maldivian life, was far from the tourists who stream to the chain of desert islands, seeking sun-and-sand paradise at luxury resorts that can command $1,000 a night.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement he hoped the "handover of power, which has been announced as a constitutional step to avoid further violence and instability, will lead to the peaceful resolution of the political crisis that has polarized the country."

Nasheed's order to the military to arrest a judge, whom he accused of blocking multi-million dollar corruption cases against members of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's government, set off three weeks of opposition protests that peaked with Tuesday's police revolt.

Amnesty International urged the new government to avoid persecuting people based on political affiliation, amid opposition calls for Nasheed's prosecution and rumours his senior allies would not be allowed to leave the islands.

The new president, Waheed, was expected to run a coalition national unity government until the presidential election in October 2013.

On Tuesday, he said it was wrong to characterise the change of leadership as a coup and pledged that tourists were at no risk. Tourism is estimated to account for two-thirds of the Maldives' gross domestic product of about $1 billion.

Although there were some travel advisories against travel to Male, most of the Maldives' nearly 1 million annual visitors never reach the capital.

Instead, they are taken straight from the airport island by speedboat or seaplane to their resorts. Flights on Wednesday were arriving as usual.

Nasheed beat his nemesis, former president Gayoom, in a 2008 poll, the first multi-party democratic election in the history of the former British protectorate, home to about 330,000 people and for centuries a sultanate.

He won further acclaim for his passionate advocacy about climate change and rising seas, which threaten to engulf the low-lying nation.