Male, Sep 7 (IANS): People turned up in large numbers Saturday across this Indian Ocean archipelago to cast their votes to elect their president, nearly 18 months after the first elected president Mohamed Nasheed was ousted.

Over 240,000 people in Maldives are eligible to vote in the election in which four candidates including incumbent President Mohamed Waheed and ousted former president Nasheed are in the fray.

The two others are tycoon Gasim Ibrahim and MP Abdulla Yameen who is the half-brother of former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.

Waheed has already cast his vote in the capital, and people all over the country are voting in over 470 centres, Xinhua reported.

Transparency Maldives, which will field the largest number of election monitors at polls, will deploy over 400 volunteers to observe the poll stations, ensuring that elections are as democratic as possible.

Both the Commonwealth observation group and the India's election commission have sent members to observe the historical election.

According to the Maldives government, the preliminary result of polls will be announced at around 11 p.m. and the final result will come Sunday morning.