Maldives Election Results Empower a Critic of China

By Mike Ives

President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, center left, of the Maldives, along with former President Mohamed Nasheed, center right, at an election campaign rally in Malé, the capital, this month.

HONG KONG — A political party led by the president of the Maldives appeared to have won decisively in parliamentary elections over the weekend, a result that may help him restore political freedoms in a strategically important country with an authoritarian past.
The president, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, had won a resounding victory in presidential elections last September.

But parts of his party’s agenda have been stymied because some of its allies in a governing coalition are aligned with a former strongman leader, Abdulla Yameen, who has been widely accused of corruption and repression.
The Maldives, a chain of islands southwest of India, has traditionally fallen within New Delhi’s sphere of influence. 

Yet it also stretches across maritime routes that are crucial to China, and Beijing has recently spent hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure projects in the Maldives.
Critics have warned of the Maldives falling prey to “debt-trap diplomacy,” meaning that it could be pressured to offer security concessions to China as repayment for large loans. 

Politicians, as well as Western and Indian diplomats, have warned that a growing dependence on China could be a threat to the country’s sovereignty.
Some political analysts saw the victory last year for Mr. Solih, who has been skeptical of China’s influence, as good news for India’s interests. 

On Sunday, a news article in the Economic Times, an Indian newspaper, described the M.D.P.’s parliamentary rout as a “shot in arm” for New Delhi in its “neighborhood.”
Preliminary results from Saturday’s vote showed that the Maldivian Democratic Party, which Mr. Solih leads, was on track to win more than two-thirds of the 87 seats in the country’s parliament, the local news media reported on Sunday. 

The M.D.P. needs just 44 seats to become the first-ever party to secure a parliamentary majority since the Maldives held its first free election in 2008.
Other parties won fewer than seven seats each on Saturday, the Maldives Independent, a local news site, reported.
Past elections in the Maldives have been marred by accusations of widespread irregularities. 

Mr. Yameen was accused of rigging last year’s presidential elections by forcing employees of state-owned companies to vote for his party, stacking the election commission with loyalists, locking up opposition leaders and canceling voter registrations.
But Transparency Maldives, an election watchdog, said in a statement on Sunday that the previous day’s vote had been “transparent and generally well-administered.”
Mr. Solih said in a statement over the weekend that the country’s people were the election’s “biggest winners.”
“That our campaign was issue-oriented and not based on hatred and narrow divisions is a win for our young democracy,” he said. 

“That our government did not hinder those candidates with whom we did not agree is a big win for the country.”
The Maldives made international headlines last winter when Yameen, the president at the time, set off a political crisis by declaring a state of emergency and sending troops to surround the Supreme Court. The move came the week after the court overturned criminal convictions against nine of Yameen’s opponents.
One of them was a former president, Mohamed Nasheed, a member of the M.D.P. who was then living in exile in London. 

Mr. Nasheed, who returned to the Maldives in late 2018, was ineligible to run in the September election because he had been sentenced to prison under the Yameen government.
Mr. Solih ran for president in Mr. Nasheed’s place.
On the campaign trail last year, Mr. Solih pledged to restore democratic freedoms if he won, including rolling back an anti-defamation law that Yameen had introduced as a tool for locking up opponents.
The anti-defamation act was repealed two months later. 

But Mr. Solih’s party, the M.D.P., has struggled in recent months to carry out other parts of its agenda.
For example, even though Mr. Solih has promised to investigate the 2014 disappearance of Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla, a prominent journalist critical of Yameen, a party in the M.D.P.’s governing coalition refused in February to call a vote on a bill about recovering stolen assets and investigating unresolved murders.
Yameen, the former strongman president, was recently imprisoned over a graft scandal involving the country’s tourism board. 

He denies the accusations and was released on bail in late March, days before the parliamentary elections.

China Encroaches on India’s Sphere of Influence

An autocrat in the Maldives tests New Delhi’s resolve.
By Sadanand Dhume

Maldivian police stand guard near the opposition party’s headquarters in Male after President Abdulla Yameen declared a state of emergency, Feb. 6. 

Is India still top dog in its neighborhood? 

This is the question raised by a political crisis in the Maldives, an Indian Ocean island chain known for its luxury beach resorts. 

Unless New Delhi swiftly restores democracy, it risks looking ineffectual in the face of Chinese inroads into India’s traditional zone of influence.
The crisis began earlier this month, when President Abdulla Yameen’s government declared a state of emergency and arrested two Supreme Court judges as well as a long-serving former president who is Mr. Yameen’s half-brother. 

The arrests followed a Supreme Court ruling that declared the terrorism conviction of exiled former President Mohamed Nasheed unconstitutional and ordered the release of eight other jailed opposition lawmakers.
Major democracies reacted to Mr. Yameen’s actions with dismay. 

The State Department said the U.S. was “troubled and disappointed” by the declaration of emergency. India’s Foreign Ministry announced that New Delhi was “disturbed.” 

The United Kingdom, from which the Maldives gained independence in 1965, said it was “gravely concerned.”
By contrast, China urged the international community to “play a constructive role on the basis of respecting the sovereignty of the Maldives.” 

Translation: Mr. Yameen should be allowed to snuff out constitutional checks without fear of foreign intervention. 

The People’s Liberation Army reinforced this message last week by posting on social media photos of training exercises in the Indian Ocean.
The Maldives has a population of 400,000 people, about as many as Staten Island, N.Y., or the south Mumbai neighborhood of Byculla. 

The country has come to symbolize a broader tussle between the world’s two most populous nations, China and India. 

For India it represents a stark challenge: Beijing’s growing influence in countries where New Delhi has traditionally loomed large.
In Nepal, K.P. Oli, a veteran communist leader with links to China, took over as prime minister last week. 

In Bangladesh, China has rolled out $24 billion in loans, mostly for infrastructure projects, dwarfing India’s more modest forays into checkbook diplomacy.
In the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, arguably India’s closest ally, Beijing is lobbying to establish full diplomatic relations. 

Last year Indian and Chinese troops were involved in a 10-week standoff on territory claimed by both Bhutan and China, and regarded by India as strategically vital. 

It ended when the Chinese agreed to halt construction of a road to which India objected, and both countries pulled back troops.
Nowhere in the region is China’s dramatically enlarged presence more visible than in Sri Lanka, the teardrop-shaped island that dangles off the southern tip of India. 

In Colombo, hulking cranes rise above a $1.4 billion port expansion and new commercial and residential development built by a Chinese firm on reclaimed land. 

Company officials say the development could turn Colombo into a commercial hub midway between the thriving entrepôts of Singapore and Dubai.
A 45-minute helicopter ride south of Colombo—over dense forests, manicured tea plantations, herds of wild elephants, and $2,000-a-night resorts—is China’s most controversial project in the region. 

In the sleepy town of Hambantota, China has built an airport with an 11,500-foot runway capable of landing an Airbus A380, as well as a modern seaport able to dock oil tankers. 

Both are largely unused.
Unable to pay back the money it borrowed to build the port, last year Sri Lanka handed it to China on a 99-year-lease. 

Both the Colombo Port project and Hambantota are part of China’s ambitious One Belt, One Road initiative.
In an interview in Colombo earlier this month, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe flatly stated that his country will not allow the Chinese to use the port for military purposes. 

But U.S. and Indian officials say that is a possibility.
This regional backdrop raises the stakes for India in the Maldives. 

Should Mr. Yameen continue to flout the Supreme Court order, it will send a signal across the region and beyond that even the smallest nations can, with China’s backing, thumb their noses at New Delhi without consequence.
In a phone interview from Colombo, former Maldivian President Nasheed says he’s concerned that expensive Chinese infrastructure projects amount to a potential “land grab” that is “hollowing out” his country’s sovereignty. 

He also worries that under Mr. Yameen the Maldives has allowed Islamic State to make inroads into the Muslim-majority country.
Mr. Nasheed stops short of explicitly calling for an Indian military intervention to restore democracy. (Thirty years ago, India sent troops to ward off mercenaries who attempted to depose the then-president.) 

Nonetheless, when asked what New Delhi should do to ensure Mr. Yameen respects the Supreme Court decision that sparked the current crisis, he leaves ajar the door to intervention: “How they impress this upon him, I’m sure countries have the imagination and the tools to do that.”

The former president may have to pick his words carefully, but for India the choice is clear. 

If it wants to retain credibility as South Asia’s leading power, it cannot allow the Maldives to turn into an authoritarian Chinese vassal. 

This means keeping all options on the table, including using military force if necessary.

Island Paradise Becomes Latest Flashpoint in India-China Rivalry

• Maldives under state of emergency as president battles court
• China, India are jockeying for influence as regime teeters

By Iain Marlow

A power struggle in the Maldives, a tiny Indian Ocean nation known for scenic luxury resorts and crystal-clear blue water, is taking center stage in a wider battle for regional influence between India and China.
On Monday, President Abdulla Yameen declared a state of emergency after the Supreme Court ordered him to free political prisoners and opposition politicians he’s thrown in jail. 

Security forces then stormed the court and arrested two judges, as well as a former leader. 

The remaining judges later annulled the previous ruling, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
The political drama has sparked concern in India, which said last week in an unusually strong statement that it’s “imperative” for the government to obey the Supreme Court. 

China, which signed a free trade agreement with the Maldives last year, said Tuesday the country of roughly 400,000 people has “the wisdom and capabilities to cope with the current situation independently.”
India, which views China as its main geopolitical foe in Asia, has been more assertive under Prime Minister Narendra Modi in pushing to maintain geo-strategic supremacy in the Indian Ocean, with backing from the U.S. and Japan. 

China, meanwhile, has expanded its influence by building ports in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Djibouti, a small African nation that is also home to its first overseas military base.

China Outreach
“As India tries to establish itself as the preeminent power in the Indian Ocean region, the Maldives have become increasingly important,” said Constantino Xavier, a fellow at Carnegie India in New Delhi. 

Yameen has “definitely accelerated his outreach to China, to fend off pressure from the west and also reduce leverage from India.”
The Maldives has become politically volatile in recent years. 

Yameen, who has courted Chinese and Saudi investment since coming to power in an election in 2013, has been criticized by the State Department for jailing opposition politicians and eroding human rights protections.
Before the decision to annul the court ruling, Mohamed Nasheed, an exiled former Maldives president and opposition leader, had asked India’s armed forces to back an envoy that would help enforce the order, free political prisoners and secure the safety of judges. 

The U.S. has condemned the state of emergency.

No Good Options
The judiciary has acted as a democratic check on Yameen, who still enjoys control over the state’s security forces, according to Dhruva Jaishankar, a foreign policy fellow at Brookings India.
“Yameen has been trying over the last few years to consolidate his political presence,” Jaishankar said, adding this has involved seeking Chinese funding. 

“India has been tentatively backing pro-democracy forces, but is also trying not to push him into the arms of the Chinese and the Saudis.”
Beijing has become more economically important to the Maldives in recent years. 

China sent about 300,000 tourists to the Maldives in 2017, more than any other country. 

Beijing has begun financing infrastructure projects, and unidentified Chinese company recently took out a 50-year lease on an island near the capital Male to build a resort.
Concerns are growing that China may eventually engage in land reclamation in the Maldives similar to what Beijing has done in the South China Sea, according to David Brewster, an academic at the Australian National University.
“It would take a miracle to be able to turn Yameen away from China while also restoring some semblance of democracy,” Brewster said. 

“India has no good options.”