Ties with India critical factor in Maldives election

Malé, Maldives — AFP

Maldives leader Ibrahim Mohamed Solih will seek re-election Saturday in a presidential vote also serving as a referendum on his pursuit of renewed ties with India, the archipelago’s traditional ally.

Solih, 61, moved swiftly to repair relations with New Delhi after defeating his predecessor Abdulla Yameen, who had instead banked on China for loans and diplomatic support.

Yameen was jailed for 11 years last December after a corruption conviction. While he is not a candidate in Saturday’s vote, but is backing a proxy.

During his tenure, Yameen borrowed heavily from China for construction projects, making the nation a hotbed of geopolitical rivalry.

Solih’s administration has criticised Beijing’s lending as a “debt trap” and worked to restore the Maldives’ traditional diplomatic posture after taking office.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a guest at Solih’s inauguration and welcomed back Indian Air Force helicopters that Yameen had ordered removed.

Solih also rejoined the Commonwealth, a bloc Yameen had quit in response to a threatened suspension over human rights issues during his time as president.

But India’s outsized political and economic power in the Maldives has itself long been a source of dispute.

Yameen’s party and other activist groups have regularly staged street protests demanding a reduction of India’s influence in the Muslim nation, which is home to more than half a million people, a third of whom are foreign workers in its tourism industry.

International diplomacy would play a crucial role in the vote, former foreign minister Ahmed Shaheed told the media.

Yameen’s party is keeping up its “India Out” campaign, but his proxy Mohamed Muizzu, the mayor of the capital Male, has avoided risking his chances by openly criticising New Delhi.

“No one can be in power in Male after defying India,” said Shaheed, who is now a professor of law at the University of Essex in Britain.

Three-cornered contest 

Solih was a substitute candidate from his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) in 2018 when its exiled high-profile leader Mohamed Nasheed was barred from contesting.

Nasheed, a globally recognised climate activist, had helped Solih secure an unexpected landslide win in the last election.

But the pair fell out earlier this year after years of squabbling over political reforms, and after both sought to become the MDP’s presidential nominee.

Although Nasheed is not standing in Saturday’s election, he is backing Ilyas Labeeb, another candidate from an MDP breakaway faction known as The Democrats.

Solih remains the frontrunner at the weekend polls, in which nearly 283,000 Maldivians over the age of 18 are eligible to vote. According to the archipelago’s constitution, every citizen must be a Sunni Muslim.