Former Maldives president and current parliamentary speaker Mohamed Nasheed was recovering in hospital Friday after an assassination attempt left him with shrapnel wounds.

The Maldives on Saturday held its first parliamentary election since former strongman leader Abdulla Yameen was forced to stand down, with his arch-rival tipped to make a big political comeback.

Outgoing Maldives President Abdulla Yameen says disappearing ink and specially treated ballot papers were to blame for his heavy election defeat last month.

The Maldives presidential election on Sunday will not be free and fair because President Abdulla Yameen has used draconian laws to crackdown on rivals, a foreign monitoring group said on the eve of voting.

The Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) said the political environment in the tourist paradise was heavily tipped in favour of Yameen and they did not expect a fair contest.

Maldives strongman Abdulla Yameen seeks a second term as president Sunday in a tourist paradise that has become a battleground for influence between regional giants India and China, and a source of global alarm over political oppression and a muzzling of the media.

The president of the Maldives appeared to accept lavish gifts from a billionaire developer who was later leased two islands in the paradise archipelago without bidding for them, a corruption watchdog alleged Tuesday.

The Maldives government is "extremely worried" about the number of nationals from the tiny troubled honeymoon islands joining the Islamic State group, a top official said Monday.

Maldives foreign secretary Ali Naseer Mohamed said as many as 40 people have traveled to the Middle East from the Indian Ocean archipelago, which has a population of just 350,000 -- mainly Sunni Muslims.

The Maldives government announced Tuesday an end to a state of emergency, which was imposed last week after an alleged attempt to assassinate President Abdulla Yameen.

"Maldives lifts State of Emergency with immediate effect," the foreign ministry said on Twitter.

The Maldives parliament on Thursday approved a state of emergency imposed by President Abdulla Yameen and used extraordinary powers to sack his estranged deputy despite mounting international concern.

Lawmakers loyal to President Yameen voted to remove Ahmed Adeeb, who was arrested last month in connection with a September blast aboard the presidential speedboat that the government says was an assassination attempt.

Maldives President Abdulla Yameen declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, giving security forces sweeping powers to arrest suspects ahead of a major anti-government protest rally.

The move, announced on Twitter, follows an alleged attempt to assassinate Yameen and the discovery of a bomb near his official residence.