Maldivian presidential election: India is not a major poll issue this time, but makes its presence felt

With only hours and days left before campaigning closes for the Maldivian presidential poll slated for Saturday, 9 September, much of the campaigns from all sides have remained mostly focused on domestic issues, that too development-centric as different from democracy-oriented, as used to be the case in the three past-previous polls, respectively in 2008, 2013 and 2018. The credit for keeping it this way should go to incumbent Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, who, through his five years in office and the past months of direct campaigning, both political and electoral, where he was not inaugurating a social or physical infrastructure scheme, be it a classroom, hospital annexe, drainage system, or a public stadium, was announcing one project after another on near-similar lines. All seven rivals of the incumbent—the highest number in any presidential poll under the multi-party democracy Constitution of 2008—entered the scene literally at the very last hour, for reasons they cannot blame Solih. By then, he had scripted the poll narrative in his inimitable style, which combined ‘silence on the streets with work on the ground’, and they did not have the time, inclination, energy, or tactic to come up with a new and different angle to the campaign. So much so that Solih’s more recent attacks on the main contender and Male City Mayor, Dr Mohamed Muizzu of the Opposition PPM-PNC combine, and some of the antics attributed to his team, look more like a nervous reaction, and not a confident confrontation, as was originally thought to be. Yes, even towards the near-end of the campaign period, no Maldivian is willing to bet his last ruffiya on who between the two would win, or who between Jumhooree Party (JP) founder Gasim Ibrahim and the breakaway Democrats’ candidate Ilyas Labeeb, backed by Parliament Speaker Mohammed Nasheed, who until recently had headed Solih’s MDP, would come third and fourth. All of it matters if none of the candidates cross the mandatory 50 per cent votemark in the first round and the presidential poll extends to the second, run-off round, slated for 30 September. On this occasion, the top two from the first round face off against each other. It is then that their respective alliances with other runners-up from the first round, starting with the third and the fourth, would matter in deciding the victor, who again would have to secure 50 percent of all polled votes. As experience has shown, the first two presidential polls were decided thus in 2008 and 2013. A pre-poll alliance existed for the last elections in 2018, in which Solih, as the common Opposition candidate, defeated incumbent Abdulla Yameen, 58-42 per cent. Promises galore… As the wag in Maldives puts it, going by the poll promises of just two candidates, namely, Solih and Muizzu, there would be more airports in the country than islands and more international airports than domestic airports, which is still the lifeline for the people residing in faraway atolls and their far-off islands. If there aren’t more, it was only because Muizzu began late in the day, and almost all the promises of the kind that were there to be made, Solih had already made, what with his incumbency giving a head-on lead even otherwise, whether in terms of airports, ferry services, bridges, and more importantly, housing, which is considered a perennial problem all across the archipelago-nation and more so in urban centres like the capital Male and southern-most Addu City. Here again, there are those who argue that there is one house per 3.5 people, or one house per family. Thus, all the new flats and plots that Solih has distributed or promised, and so has Muizzu and some of the other candidates have promised, are going only to those that already have homes and not to those that do not have and cannot afford them, even if heavily subsidised by the government. It is here that those like JP’s Gasim Ibrahim (whose votes went to help the winner in 2008 and 2013) have talked more about ‘social housing’ for the have-nots. Another candidate, MNP founder Col Mohamed Nazim, an army veteran, too has been making specific promises on specific projects relating to specific islands and communities. While Gasim’s maiden campaign declaration to waive of all education and health care loans handed out to 8,000 people across the country, by him personally and through his Villa Group of companies, did make headlines, the electoral impact may not be the same as in the past, after the erstwhile Nasheed Government (2008-12) introduced the Aasandha free health insurance scheme and also an old-age pension scheme for men and women above the age of 60. Successive Governments since have expanded the scope of both schemes and also the pay-outs, with the result, philanthropy of the Gasim kind has become less attractive in politico-electoral terms – or, that is now the belief, ten years after he last contested the presidential poll. ‘India Out’ no more It is here, Yameen’s one-time ‘India Out’ war-slogan for Elections-2023 has lost its charm for Muizzu, whom the former supported rather reluctantly but whose campaign, the erstwhile First Lady, Fathimath Ibrahim, has since begun participating, thus belying motivated social media posts and newspaper claims to the contrary. Incidentally, through the campaign-period, over half-a-dozen English media web-journals in the country have all but blacked out Nasheed, his candidate and their campaign, as if by divine instructions. Experienced campaigner that he is, Nasheed is said to be delivering street-corner campaign speeches all across Male city, where over 40 per cent of the nation’s 500,000-population reside. The population also has a heavy mix of people from almost every atoll and island all across the country – people who have live-contacts with their home-islands, and often travel back home for casting their vote. The Maldivian Election Commission (EC) makes special provisions for their benefit, yet, this time round, various opinion polls have shown that the voter turn-out could be much lower than the average 90 per cent, owing mainly to voter-apathy, for which many blame the lack-lustre performance of the Solih Government (which is hard to believe, for an outsider) and the equally insolent performance of the political Opposition, which was working out various permutations and combinations and so very openly to field a common candidate until the nominations were about to close. At the only presidential debate organised by a private television channel after Team Solih had goofed up an earlier engagement, as if by design, the incumbent would not answer India-related questions directly. When the backdrop was Yameen’s all-but-failed ‘India Out’ campaign, especially after he went back to jail in the second of three money-laundering cases after the Supreme Court had unanimously acquitted him in the first one, Solih reassured his voter-audience that there was no arms-bearing foreign soldier on Maldivian territory. He was obviously referring to the Indian military pilots and technicians stationed in the country, to serve and service the three India-gifted flying-machines (two helicopters and one Dornier fixed-wing reconnaissance aircraft), which are mostly used for air-lifting emergency patients from distant island, to capital Male for better medical care. In his last months as President, Yameen had openly asked India to take back the men and machines, but to no avail. On his part, Muizzu too initially shied away from making any direct reference to India or Indian ‘military presence’, as the Yameen campaign had projected it. However, he has haltingly begun declaring in island-level campaigns that if elected President, he would not compromise the nation’s ‘independence and sovereignty’ but without blaming the incumbent as directly as Yameen had done during his PPM-PNC combine’s street-protests in the previous one and half years. Muizzu also has declared that he would not shut down all projects put on stream by the Solih Government, but later began amending the same, as if by way of clarification, that he would review all projects and decide about their future on merits. But he too has refrained thus far from commenting on India-funded coast guard port under construction on Uthuru Thila Falhu (UTF) Island, which was a major bone of contention when Yameen was around. For now, definitely, unlike in neighbouring Sri Lanka or other Indian neighbours, no one in Maldivian election entourage is making direct comparisons between India and China. The focus, if any, is only on India. Even when the fifth anniversary of the China-funded Sinamale Bridge, connecting capital Male with airport-island Hulhule, fell during the campaign weeks, none except Muizzu acknowledged the same. Even his social media message was weak and eminently forgettable and ignorable. Yet, none of it means that a Muizzu presidency will be pro-India and anti-China, as a section of the Indian strategic community is not tired of equating. Nor would a second Solih presidency be outright pro-India and anti-China, by extension. If nothing else, the nation owes the money borrowed especially during the Yameen presidency, to China, and Beijing gave the Solih presidency, a grace period, which however was played down in public. Even without it, the nation’s external debt is mind-boggling by Maldivian standards, so has been the Solih leadership’s profligacy to print currency at will, blaming it initially on the Covid set-backs for the nation’s tourism-centric economy. Solih has begun addressing the issues after Muizzu began talking about it in campaign-time, and has sought to reassure the nation that there would not be a crisis as is being painted by his detractors. The incumbent has also claimed that all his promised projects would cost only MVR 31 billion ($ 2 billion). Others tend to disagree, but are yet to produce any convincing argument, at least on the latter. Otherwise, both especially have been competing on granting concessions, what with Solih doing here and now what Muizzu promises for an unsure future. Thus, he has cancelled all traffic fines, and introduced sea-ambulances, both of which the other had promised only days earlier. However, Solih’s other schemes like free travel for school and college students in State-owned buses and ferries may not have reached the targeted first-time voters, in time for making a difference. Religious conservative As the youngest and the most qualified of all eight candidates, especially in terms of development projects, Muizzu, at 45, holds a PhD in Structural Engineering from a British university after completing his engineering and MPhil qualifications from other universities in that country. As Housing Minister under Yameen, he was seen as a ‘development man’, but his overall image as a religious scholar and conservative, inherited from his family and upbringing, refuses to go away. If anything, a series of social media posts by identifiable fundamentalist Salafi leaders in the country, backing his candidacy for the presidency was thought to be his undoing. This was especially so after at least one of them cautioned Maldivian women (who are modern but modest), on the social media, that new dress codes would be imposed for them ‘when Muizzu becomes President’. If the MDP and Solih especially, and more so the Democrats and Nasheed otherwise had the occasion to condemn the same and try to make electoral capital out of it, the latter has mostly stayed away. Team Solih possibly made a hash of it, giving a handle for the Muizzu campaign to dub them as ‘cowards’, who were targeting their candidate, unjustly and meanly. In a way, more than India, it is the southern neighbour, Mauritius-centric IMBL demarcation controversy that sprouted late last year that has been in the campaign news over the past three or four weeks. It was so earlier this year, when the Solih Government, withdrew objections to conferring the ownership of the Chagos Archipelago on Mauritius after voting against it in the UN. Be it as it may, there are not many takers in the Opposition, and possibly outside too, that his government has not compromised on the nation’s right to claim its due in the otherwise pending border row with Mauritius. Both during the poll campaign and earlier too, almost every other candidate, other than late-entrant Zameel, one of the three Independents, had vowed to take back Chagos, or at least the claims to the same – but without explaining how they intended altering the course of the international legal proceedings that have been halted and reversed already. The writer is a Chennai-based policy analyst & political commentator. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost_’s views._ Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.