Mohamed Muizzu’s victory in Presidential run-off brings China back into play, but is that good news for the Maldives?
06-10-2023
Last Saturday’s Presidential run-off elections in the Maldives did not spring any surprise on the half-a-million residents of the small island nation. In what was seen as a test of the Indian Ocean archipelago’s nascent democracy and its ties with its traditional benefactor India, and with China which in the pre-2018 Abdulla Yameen era had made disquieting inroads into the fragile Maldivian economy, the incumbent Ibrahim Mohamed Solih lost to Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) candidate Mohamed Muizzu, who in turn was described by analysts as a proxy candidate for his mentor – the former President Yameen. Muizzu, the 45-year-old President-elect, has a doctorate in civil engineering from the United Kingdom (UK) and had worked as an engineer in the private sector before joining politics. Prior to being elected as the Mayor of the capital city Malé in 2021, he had served as Minister of Housing and Infrastructure under Yameen.
While some saw the elections as a referendum on the competition between India and China for influence in the Maldives, others felt that the geo-political aspects had received unwarranted prominence in an election where local governance and economic issues were the priority for the people. Also, given the recent China-driven economic meltdown in Sri Lanka and the similar experiences being encountered by others such as Pakistan, which have put almost all their eggs in the Chinese basket, many have expressed concern over the perils lurking in the direction that the pro-China Muizzu is likely to take the Maldives in. More pragmatic observers, however, believe that just as was the case with every other Maldivian leader that preceded him, India will remain the fulcrum of the new President’s focus, even if China will reasonably hope that the impediments that it had to work around during Solih’s 5 years at the helm would dissipate and be replaced by more outstretched welcoming arms.
Muizzu had emerged as the surprise frontrunner during the first round of voting on 8 September, polling about 46% of the ballots cast. In these elections that featured eight candidates, Solih, whose prospects had by then been dampened by a low voter turnout and a split within his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), polled just 39% of the votes. The split in the MDP, with former President and Solih’s childhood friend Mohamed Nasheed parting ways with him before the elections to create his own party, was both public and messy. Nasheed, who had helped Solih become President, gave the impression that he felt increasingly marginalized. The candidate put forward by Nasheed’s new party had received 7% of the vote on 8 September, making it a potential kingmaker in the runoff. However, Nasheed, torn between his longtime closeness to India and the breakdown of his relationship with Solih, found himself in a difficult spot that he said could not be surmounted. After neither Muizzu nor Solih managed a first-round victory by getting at least half of the vote, the race was pushed into a run-off. Nasheed’s party announced emphatically that it would “refrain from supporting either candidate” in the run-off.
The campaign for the elections had focused on a range of issues, including a housing crisis in the overcrowded capital, which is scarce on land, and the country’s declining dollar reserves. That problem had prompted parties to offer competing “de-dollarization” proposals relating to trade. These local factors were interspersed with questions over the influence of China and India over the future of the Maldives. As The New York Times articulated, “For China and India, the jostling for influence among their neighbors is nothing new. China enjoyed an early advantage because of its deep pockets and the development loans it brought as part of its Belt and Road Initiative, but India has asserted itself more in the region in recent years”.
Le Monde reported that the turnout in Saturday’s run-off poll was a healthy 85%, slightly higher than the first-round vote. Watchdog group Transparency Maldives said that there had been some incidents of “electoral violence”, without specifying further details. Officials said one voter broke open a plastic ballot box, but the ballots were saved and there was no interruption to the count. Police reported arresting 14 people for poll-related incidents.
Commenting on the results, Le Monde recalled that “Muizzu played a pivotal role in an earlier government’s development program, bankrolled in part by financial largesse from China’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. He told a meeting with Chinese Communist Party officials last year that his party’s return to office would ‘script a further chapter of strong ties between our two countries’”.
Al Jazeera, on the other hand, noted that the PPM’s return to power would also likely mean freedom for former President Abdulla Yameen, who lost power in 2018 as he moved the country uncomfortably close to China and became increasingly autocratic. Yameen is presently serving a 11-year prison term for corruption and money laundering. Al Jazeera also pointed out that Solih’s defeat to Muizzu marked the first time that Maldivians had voted out a liberal democratic government in favour of an authoritarian challenger since the country held its first multi-party elections in 2008.
After his victory, Muizzu delivered a brief statement at his party’s headquarters, thanking all those who voted for him and calling on the government to release Yameen. He said to his party workers, “The people have spoken loud and clear — they wish for prosperity and guaranteed sovereignty for the country”. Muizzu made a strong appeal for unity in the politically divided, Sunni Muslim-majority nation, and stressed that “No matter their political affiliation, they are all Maldivian citizens in front of me. They are entitled to the same rights. They are entitled to equality in everything”.
Al Jazeera quoted Muizzu as saying, “Today is a very happy day… I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the Maldivian people. This outcome today is a huge encouragement for us in our pursuit to build a better future for our country, and to ensure the sovereignty of our nation”. The President-elect added, “Yameen, the leader of the PPM, must be released. The president has the power to transfer Yameen to home imprisonment. And doing so, I believe, is the best action that can be taken in our nation’s interests”.
The defeated incumbent, President Ibrahim Solih, promptly conceded defeat in the run-off vote and congratulated Muizzu. He wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “Congratulations to the winner of the presidential election @MMuizzu. Thank you for the beautiful democratic example shown by the people in the elections. Thank you to the MDP and AP members who worked together and to all the people who voted for me”. Former President Nasheed, who is currently the Speaker of the Parliament, also congratulated Muizzu by writing, “Congratulations, President-elect Dr. @MMuizzu”.
Foreign Minister and senior MDP leader Abdulla Shahid joined others in congratulating Muizzu, but he also thanked Solih for his tenure. He wrote, “Congratulations to President-elect Dr @MMuizzu for winning the Presidential Election 2023. Many congratulations and much gratitude to President @ibusolih, for the many seeds of hope he had sown over the last 5 years, which will surely reap much prosperity for our country and people”.
As for international reactions, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first world leaders to congratulate Muizzu on 1 October. Modi posted on X that New Delhi was “committed to strengthening the time-tested India-Maldives bilateral relationship”. The President of neighbouring Sri Lanka, Ranil Wickremesinghe, telephoned Muizzu to express “his heartfelt desire” to elevate ties to a “robust and multi-faceted partnership”, his office said.
The United States (US), which shares India’s concerns about reckless expansion of China’s strategic and economic interests in the highly-vulnerable but strategically important Maldives, congratulated the President-elect and said the two countries had a “strong relationship based on mutual respect and shared interests”. The US State Department added in the statement that “The United States looks forward to deepening our partnership with Maldives and expanding our people-to-people ties”.
Interestingly, other than a local meme of Muizzu’s victory being reposted on X by Wang Lixin, the Chinese Ambassador in Malé, there was no immediate formal reaction from China to Muizzu’s victory. The Ambassador added “warm congratulation” and three clapping emojies to her repost of the local sun.mv media network’s post applauding Muizzu. Eventually, Chinese President Xi Jinping did congratulate Muizzu on 3 October, and he pledged to further deepen bilateral ties.
Among other local reactions, the Associated Press (AP) news agency quoted Mohamed Shareef, a top official from Muizzu’s PPM, as saying “Today’s result is a reflection of the patriotism of our people. A call on all our neighbours and bilateral partners to fully respect our independence and sovereignty”. Others, such as Ahmed Shaheed, a two-time former Foreign Minister, described the outcome as a verdict on the government’s failure to meet economic and governance expectations rather than concerns over external influence. He said, “I don’t think India was at all in the people’s minds. Nasheed’s departure took the motherboard away from the MDP”.
AP quoted a local, Abdul Muhusin, who said he voted for Solih in the run-off, as saying that “These five years have been the most peaceful and prosperous five years we’ve ever seen. We have had political peace, opposition candidates are not jailed every day”. 27-year-old political science student Mohamed Rauhan Ahmed echoed this assessment when he told The New York Times outside a polling station in Malé that it was inevitable that China and India would continue to jostle for influence in the Maldives, but amidst that tug-of-war, “For a change, we experienced peace and freedom in the last five years” under Solih.
The Maldives, which sits in a strategically vital position in the middle of the Indian Ocean astride one of the world’s busiest east-west shipping lanes, has long been under India's sphere of influence. That is understandable, given that the islands lie just 450 miles south of India, and share ethnic and cultural ties with it. Maintaining its presence in the Maldives has given New Delhi the ability to monitor a key part of the Indian Ocean. India is the Maldives’ biggest partner in almost everything — trade, military, geostrategy, culture, and development. India has, over the decades, sent billions of dollars to the Maldives.
What is less explicable is the undue and questionable interest that China, geographically separated from the island nation by thousands of miles and with no ethnic or culturally affinity to it, has in the Maldives. Chinese activities in the Maldives began to increase noticeably a decade ago, when President Xi Jinping began to earnestly expand the communist footprint in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). With its rapidly expanding naval forces, China became covetous of access to the Maldives’ strategically important location. It was also keen to protect its energy supplies from the Gulf, which pass through the area. However, as it expanded its footprint in the Maldives, Chinese loans rapidly became a headache for the tiny country’s economy. The Maldives reportedly owes China $3.5 billion, pushing its debt to 31% of its gross national income in 2022.
Prabhash K Dutta wrote in The Times of India that “The challenge to India’s dominant position in the Maldives began with the victory of Yameen over Mohamed Nasheed — the MDP founder who defeated Gayoom in the first free and fair election in the country in 2008. Yameen had built his political capital largely on an anti-India plank going into the 2013 presidential election. He was backed by China, which has had diplomatic ties with the Maldives since 1972 but had been unable to make much headway”. Yameen’s turn towards Beijing had alarmed New Delhi, which shares concerns with the US and its allies about China’s growing assertiveness in the Indian Ocean.
As Muizzu embarks on his term at the helm, he would do well to recognize the importance of keeping old, tested friends on his side while also being mindful of the huge risks that accepting deceptively easy Chinese loans entail, the recent near-collapse of neighbouring Sri Lanka’s economy and the consequent suffering of its people being a direct case in point.
