External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar visited Maldives earlier this week, at a fraught time for the country’s president, Ibrahim Solih. The presidential election in Maldives is to be held on September 9 this year, with a runoff, if necessary, on September 30. Solih has announced he will run for a second term, but his candidature has been opposed within his party by former president and leader of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) Mohamed Nasheed, who has thrown his hat in the ring. The two will face off in the party primary on January 28.
For Delhi, the feuding in the MDP is bad news. Relations between India and the Maldives have improved dramatically since 2018, when Solih defeated Abdulla Yameen, president from 2013 to 2018. Yameen had given his country’s foreign policy a pronounced pro-China tilt, and has, over the last year, run an anti-India campaign alleging that the MDP government has sold out to India and permitted Indian troops to be based on Maldivian soil.
Yameen is now serving a 11-year prison sentence after his conviction late last year on charges of money laundering and bribery, which bars him from standing for election. But his Progressive Congress Coalition is working to build a legal case for his acquittal by a higher court. Neither Yameen nor his party has spoken of any other person replacing him as a candidate, sending out the message that he has not yet been knocked out of the race.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar with with his Maldivian counterpart Abdulla Shahid in Manadhoo on Wednesday. PTI
India’s message
Jaishankar’s visit apparently steered clear of the political wranglings in the country, but it did not leave anyone in doubt about what Delhi wanted.
As the minister put in a tweet, he “conveyed a strong message that India is a committed partner in the Maldives’s journey of progress and transformation”. He also flagged the “new disruptions” in the current geopolitics that made collaboration even more important.
Jaishankar did not touch down in the capital Male, landing in the northern atolls of the Maldivian archipelago instead. He and President Solih participated in the groundbreaking ceremony of an international airport being developed by India at Hanimadhoo in Haaa Dahaalu atoll. In the Manadhoo island of Noonu atoll, the two sides signed three MoUs, including on a proposed collaboration between Cochin University and the Maldives National University, and a $100 million grant for “high impact community development” projects. Jaishankar handed over two sea ambulances to the Maldives Defence Ministry. He distributed books at a pre-school in Manadhoo. In the Foakaidhoo island in the nearby Shaviyani atoll, Jaishankar and his counterpart Abdulla Shahid inaugurated an India-funded community centre.
“We discussed the full spectrum of our special bilateral partnership with a focus on development cooperation, capacity building and people-to-people ties. The partnership with India has made a real difference in the lives of people. My visit was an opportunity to see tangible results,” Jaishankar tweeted.
Describing the Hanimadhoo airport project as a “historic milestone” in India-Maldives relations, he said the bilateral partnership had “enabled us to deliver results and bring about tangible benefits to our people in accordance with their wishes, aspirations and priorities”.
He went on to say that “the need for cooperation and collaboration has assumed even greater importance” as “the current complex geopolitical environment has thrown up new disruptions which are impacting every country in the world.”
From the Indian point of view, Solih is a sober, steady pair of hands at the helm, in a country crucial to its interests in the Indian Ocean. In the past five years, Delhi’s Neighbourhood First and SAGAR policies have found expression in the improvement of ties. Maldives is part of the India-driven Colombo Security Conclave. Solih’s foreign policy expressly roots for “India First”, but it is also careful about not alienating China.
Bitter falling-out
Aware that any overt expression of preference in the polls would play into the hands of India-baiters, Delhi has been careful to keep out of the MDP rivalry, despite the evident proximity to Solih and its concerns over the bitter falling-out between him and Nasheed.
The race between the two in the MDP’s presidential primary seems to be close. A Nasheed victory in the primary may turn Solih into a lame duck for the rest of his term. The bigger concern is that if Solih wins, Nasheed might still decide to contest as an independent. Or, as a leader who still commands a huge following in the Maldives, he may work against Solih to the advantage of the opposition. Fuelling such speculation were Nasheed’s recent remarks praising Yameen as a “visionary” leader who was more capable than Solih, who he alleged was running a “corrupt” government. He said his only disagreement with Yameen was his anti-India stand. Nasheed later said that if he lost the primary, he would support neither Solih nor Yameen.
Meanwhile, the People’s Progressive Coalition is hoping to put enough pressure on the Maldivian higher judiciary to fast track Yameen’s appeal in the High Court.
A prison sentence of more than a year is a disqualification from running for office. A person thus sentenced can stand for election only three years after finishing the sentence. In Yameen’s case, that would be a total of 14 years. The party has begun a campaign that denying Yameen his freedom denies a level playing field in the elections to his party, and also denies voters a choice. But the legal appeal has a short window, as nominations for the September 9 election begin on July 23 and will close on August 3. Plus, there is another case pending against him, which, if taken up by the trial court, could lead to a second conviction.
India’s infrastructure projects
The $ 136.6-million development of the airport at Hanimadhoo will be executed by the Indian company JMC Projects Ltd. It has been financed by a line of credit to the Maldives from India’s Exim Bank. It includes the development of a 2.46-km runway that can accommodate large aircraft, and a terminal with an annual capacity for 1.3 million passengers. The airport is expected to help bring in more tourists to the northern areas of the Maldives. Tourism is the country’s economic mainstay. This is the second biggest infra project that India has begun in recent months after the $500-million Greater Male Connectivity project, that aims to link the Maldives capital to three neighbouring highlands with a 6.74-k bridge and causeway over the sea.
Both are prestige projects for Delhi that compete in scale with the Chinese built Male-Hulumale-Hulhule bridge and the Hulumale airport, awarded to the Chinese after the Indian group GMR’s contract was cancelled. In addition, India funds many community development projects across the Maldives.
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