The next President of the United States must step up immediately after the election to help guide the world through the financial crisis, Gordon Brown said today.

The Prime Minister was speaking at an oil conference in Abu Dhabi on the third day of his Gulf trip, which has seen him encouraging greater investment and closer co-operation from the oil-rich emirates. He is in Abu Dhabi today after visiting Saudi Arabia on Saturday and Qatar yesterday, and he arrives home tomorrow night in time for the close of polls and start of the television coverage of the US election.

Speaking hours before the polls were due to open across the United States, Mr Brown urged both Presidential contenders not to allow a political vacuum between the election and the inauguration of the next President in January.

Saying that America’s leadership over the financial crisis has so far been “vital”, Mr Brown said: “I think that leadership will and must continue.”

The two-month gap before the next President is sworn in usually marks an interregnum in US politics. Traditionally the incumbent draws back as he prepares to leave office while the President Elect uses the period to chose his new team and agree an agenda for his first hundred days.

However, Mr Brown is urging the next President to show leadership much sooner, suggesting he thinks they should play a role at the Washington meeting of world leaders on November 15.

Mr Brown believes that America’s role was vital to the co-ordinated global interest rate cut last month, and there is growing speculation that another such reduction is imminent.

It is not known whether the President elect will be attending the Washington meeting, organised by President Bush, to discuss the reform of global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Mr Brown has spent much of his time in the Gulf encouraging input into the meeting from regional leaders, and secured agreement from King Abdullah, the Saudi King, to attend.

Mr Brown urged the winner to focus immediately on the financial crisis to protect jobs and homes across the world.

He told the conference: “In the coming weeks and months, the whole world will want to work closely with America on a shared common agenda to bring growth and jobs back to our economies; to give greater stability to our financial system; to defeat protectionism in favour of free trade and of course to work for a more secure world.”

Mr Brown has already met both Barack Obama and John McCain twice in the run-up to the US election, in the US and London, and discussed the issues. His remarks about the need to “defeat protectionism” may be seen as a warning to Mr Obama, who is less enthusiastic about free trade than his Republican counterpart.

Mr Brown spent the morning visiting one of the world’s largest gas fields in Qatar, which could supply up to 20 per cent of the UK’s supply in the next decade. He then vested the al Udeid military base where around 450 RAF personnel are stationed. The base co-ordinates operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.