Very few expected Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu’s party to win Sunday’s parliamentary elections, also by a landslide. For this was a man whose triumph in last year’s presidential election came by chance.
At that time, the 45-year-old mayor of the capital Male entered the presidential race only at the last moment as a proxy candidate, after the country’s Supreme Court banned the opposition leader, former president Abdulla Yameen, from contesting the vote about a bribery conviction.
On campaign banners and posters, it was Yameen’s face that appeared most prominently. And at campaign rallies, the seat front and center was empty, reserved for the imprisoned leader.
Muizzu wooed voters with promises to free Yameen and implement the politician’s “India out” campaign to end what they called New Delhi’s outsized influence in the Maldives – an archipelago of 500,000 people in the Indian Ocean – and expel military personnel Indian man parked there.
But soon after his electoral victory in October, Muizzu and Yameen – who was transferred to house arrest – fell out, leading the president-elect to create a separate party, the People’s National Congress (PNC). Amid the bitter division, it looked like Muizzu would face an uphill battle to win enough support in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, especially as the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) – which controls an absolute majority in the outgoing parliament or Majlis – still looked strong. .
But Muizzu’s PNC swept the vote last weekend.
The party won 66 seats, while its allies won nine, giving the president the support of 75 lawmakers in the 93-member House – enough to amend the Constitution if he so desires. Meanwhile, the MDP won just 12 seats. And Yameen’s party didn’t win any.
Muizzu now has “absolute power”, said Ibrahim Ismail, a former lawmaker and founder of Mandhu College in Male. “This level of majority is not good. You cannot expect checks or balances on the president’s power.”
Ismail, who played a key role in drafting the Maldives’ constitution, said he feared a return to “tyranny”, almost two decades after the Maldives ushered in a multi-party democracy. “The PNC is not really a proper political party. It doesn’t come from below,” he said. “It was formed during Muizzu’s rise to power and there is no one, no structures in the party that hold him accountable. Basically, all members elected to parliament on the PNC ticket are at the mercy of the president.”
This victory also gives the president “nearly total power over the judiciary,” Ismail said. “It is likely that there will be changes in the courts, quite possibly the replacement of the entire Supreme Court bench. And if judges want to maintain their position, they may be forced to compromise their judicial independence, paving the way for tyranny,” he said.
Equally worrying, Ismail said, is that the government “can virtually rewrite the constitution,” potentially weakening provisions that guarantee fair elections and imposing term limits on elected officials.
Draws with India are at all-time lows
The signs are already worrying.
Although Muizzu promised not to persecute his opponents during the presidential campaign, one of the first actions his government took in power was to cut off online access to several critical news and satire websites.
The government, however, backed down after a public outcry.
“I foresee serious challenges to Maldivian democracy,” said Ahmed “Hiriga” Zahir, editor-in-chief of the Dhauru newspaper. “There are concerns about transparency. The Muizzu government did not disclose the expenses of the presidential palace, as well as the number of political appointments it made,” said the veteran journalist. “And there was virtually no interaction between the government and the media in the six months of his term. If this continues, and if there is no considerable opposition, it will be difficult for our democracy.”
Still, Zahir said, the Maldivian public will likely turn against Muizzu in the next election if he fails to deliver on campaign promises.
The president – a civil engineer by profession – campaigned on promises to boost infrastructure development, the most spectacular of which was the creation of a new population center on an island reclaimed from the sea, linked to the capital by an underwater tunnel.
It is not clear, however, whether he will be able to complete these megaprojects.
The tourism-dependent island nation’s debt is about 113 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), more than half of which is owed to China and India, totaling about $1.6 billion each. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned in February that the country was at risk of high debt distress and called for “urgent policy adjustments,” including reforms to health care and subsidy programs, as well as bloated state-owned enterprises.
“The situation is quite challenging,” said Mark Bohlund, senior analyst at REDD, a London-based financial intelligence provider. “I think the Maldives will need some form of external support. Whether from India, China or the Middle East.”
But so far, very little help has been made available.
Ties with India – which often intervenes to rescue the Maldives, including during the COVID-19 pandemic – are at an all-time low due to Muizzu’s efforts to expel the 75 Indian military personnel stationed in the country. The troops operate two Dornier aircraft donated by India that assist in medical evacuations and rescue operations. New Delhi has agreed to replace them with civilians and the last batch is expected to leave the Maldives by May 10.
Relations were further strained when three of Muizzu’s deputy ministers made derogatory comments about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January, labeling him a “clown” for launching a campaign to boost tourism in India’s Lakhswadeep Islands, located north of the Maldives archipelago.
The dispute resulted in Indian social media activists calling for a boycott of tourism in the Maldives. Arrivals from India – which was the biggest source of tourists last year – have since fallen.
‘Too much leverage’ for China
Muizzu also had little help from Middle Eastern partners.
He was scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia shortly after his inauguration in November, but the visit was abruptly canceled without explanation. The president visited Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, but there were no public offers of financial aid.
China also appears reluctant so far.
Although Muizzu paid a January visit to Beijing, where Chinese President Xi Jinping called him an “old friend,” it is unclear what help, if any, was offered. Maldivian media reported that China agreed to provide assistance to the Maldives – although the amount was not disclosed – and said it would consider restructuring debt payments, a large portion of which is due in 2026.
Under REDD, however, Chinese debt restructuring alone is unlikely to be sufficient for the Maldives to avoid increasing external debt distress due to a $500 million Islamic bond that will also reach the maturity in 2026.
A former senior government official, who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, said China may now be more receptive given Muizzu’s landslide victory. “China has a lot of influence,” the former official said, and will likely seek favors in return, including ratification of a Free Trade Agreement that has languished since 2014 and access to key east-west trade routes that the Maldives traverses. Indian and Western diplomats have already expressed concerns that this access could pave the way for China to secure an outpost in the Indian Ocean.
David Brewster, a senior researcher at the National Security College in Australia, was skeptical about the possibility of the Maldives allowing a Chinese military presence, even if it meant alleviating its financial problems.
“Certainly China will have a lot of influence, but I would be very surprised if there was any military presence. Because the consequences of this in terms of the Maldives’ relations with India and other countries will be very serious,” he said, noting that the Maldives now also has “a very large debt to India.”
Taking the example of neighboring Sri Lanka, another nation heavily indebted to China and which suffered a financial crisis in 2022, Brewster wondered how much help Beijing can offer.
“In Sri Lanka, China has not been particularly helpful in terms of debt renegotiation and debt relief. So we don’t know what Beijing will do in the Maldives,” he said. “In Sri Lanka, it was India that provided the big loan and really helped the country overcome the crisis, while all international debts were rescheduled. And it was only after China grudgingly agreed to a debt deal,” he said.
The Maldives, he said, will most likely need to turn to the IMF very soon.
“It would be interesting to see how this plays out, whether China will be interested in playing a constructive role or not,” he added.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
