 A former political prisoner who defeated Asia's longest-serving ruler in the first multiparty election in the Maldives was due to be sworn in as president of the Indian Ocean archipelago on Tuesday. Mohamed Nasheed, 41, is due to take office from Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the man who had repeatedly jailed him on what rights groups say were trumped-up charges, at a morning ceremony. Nasheed, who was just 11 when Gayoom took power in 1978, defeated his former adversary in a runoff poll on Oct. 28 with 54.2 percent of the votes. Gayoom, 71, had been accused by critics of running the islands like his personal sultanate. But he made good on his pledge to hand over power peacefully, conceding his loss swiftly and promising to become an opposition figure. The election was the culmination of years of agitation for democratic reforms on the string of 1,192 mostly uninhabited coral atolls 800 km off the tip of India, peopled by 300,000 Sunni Muslims. Nasheed's victory caps a remarkable journey for an activist whose criticism of Gayoom and crusading for democracy resulted in him being charged 27 times and jailed or banished to remote atolls for a total of six years. Gayoom is widely credited with overseeing the Maldives' transformation from a fishing-based economy to a tourism powerhouse with South Asia's highest per-capita income, favoured by Hollywood stars and other wealthy travellers. But Nasheed argued that only a small clique around Gayoom grew rich amid corruption in his government, which Gayoom denies. Nasheed will take over an economy that earns 28 percent of its GDP directly from tourism but which is under IMF pressure to cut debts and trim a huge government payroll. Tourism is also expected to suffer from the global financial crisis. The archipelago also faces high child malnutrition, growing Islamist militancy, a major heroin problem, and rising sea levels that could leave much of its land mass underwater by 2100 if a UN climate change panel's predictions are right. Nasheed has pledged a host of reforms, including privatising state enterprises and turning the islands into a model of renewable energy through widespread use of solar power.  