The Maldivian Surprise

Abdulla Yameen, the Maldives’ strongman president since 2013, expected to easily coast to re-election on September 23, 2018. Yet, shockingly, he lost the election he had spent months rigging in his favor. His loss to a relative unknown, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), demonstrates that the democratic pulse in his country is much stronger than many analysts believed. In addition, Yameen’s loss also demonstrated that electorates and politicians throughout Asia are turning against the perceived use of Chinese economic power to shape political and geostrategic outcomes in their countries. In addition to the Maldives, politicians in Malaysia and Pakistan – an otherwise close ally of China’s – have begun to question their countries’ economic deals with Beijing.

Yameen had been preparing to hold on to power since February, when he declared a state of emergency after disobeying a Supreme Court order to release nine political prisoners. Instead, Yameen ordered the arrests of members of parliament, court justices, and his estranged half-brother and former president, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. While Gayoom also ruled in an autocratic manner for decades, he stepped down peacefully after losing the first election he allowed to be contested, in 2008, to Mohamed Nasheed. Nasheed was then forced to step down from power in 2012 under murky circumstances; Nasheed himself claimed that it was at gunpoint. Subsequently, Nasheed went into exile in Sri Lanka, and Yameen was elected in 2013. Yameen has been on poor terms with both of his predecessors, Nasheed and Gayoom, who was accused of trying to overthrow him after his 2018 arrest. Moreover, Yameen alienated many of his erstwhile allies throughout his presidency. His vice president, Ahmed Adeeb, was arrested in 2015 on charges of attempting to assassinate Yameen by placing a bomb in his speedboat, though the explosion may have been due to a mechanical failure.

Yameen spent much of his time in office consolidating power and squeezing dissent. He reintroduced the death penalty and re-criminalized defamation. It appeared, from the outside, that Yameen would rig the election in his favor.

But Solih, a parliamentarian who stood in for Nasheed (who did not contest the election) won with 58 percent of the vote.

Solih’s win has been seen as a victory for democracy in the Maldives; it has also been viewed as a victory for India.

Yameen had cozied up to China for investment, a development that alarmed India, the Maldives’ traditional partner. India intervened militarily during an attempted coup in 1988 at the request of then-President Gayoom. However, following Yameen’s 2013 election, the Maldives grew particularly close to China. China was an attractive partner for Yameen for several reasons including Beijing’s capacity to invest in the country. Also, because of his predecessors’ close relationships with India, China was a natural choice for Yameen.

The real boom in Maldives-China relations took place in September 2014, when China’s President Xi Jinping visited the Maldives, after which a deal was signed that allowed a Chinese firm to upgrade the Maldives’ international airport on the island of Hulhule. In December 2014, the Maldives signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China supporting its One Belt One Road (OBOR) project, now the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

China recently completed the 2.1-kilometer Sinamalé Bridge, also known as the China-Maldives Friendship Bridge, which connects Malé, the capital, and Hulhule. It is the nation’s first bridge between islands, a contract that an Indian firm had also bid for. The bridge’s $210 million price tag, about half of which was funded by China, and some by the Maldives, was a cause of concern among many in the Maldives, who were wary of being indebted to China. However, the Yameen government argued that the renovated airport would allow an influx of Chinese tourists, thus bolstering the nation’s economy. Around 300,000 Chinese tourists visited the Maldives last year, more than any other country.

More worrying, from India’s perspective, was China’s use of infrastructure in the Maldives for military purposes. In particular, New Delhi was concerned over a Chinese-Maldivian plan earlier this year to build a Joint Ocean Observation Station in Makunudhoo, the westernmost atoll in the country’s north. While the station was not explicitly intended for military purposes, even such a potential use was of concern to India, and its fears were fanned by Solih’s MDP, which perhaps saw an advantage in India cleaving to such a viewpoint.

The MDP’s victory may mitigate such concerns, but the drama in the Maldives may not yet be at an end. After initially accepting the results of the election, Yameen, who is still president until a planned turnover on November 17, has recently contested them, despite also releasing political prisoners, including his half-brother Gayoom. Ironically, Yameen has alleged that due to rampant rigging, the election ought to be annulled. He used a similar method of challenging electoral results and calling for new elections to win power in 2013. It is quite possible that he could still devise a way to hold on to power, though that would invite a rigorous response from India, the United States, and the European Union.

Even if Solih does become president as planned, he may find it hard to govern and chart a new path. Yameen still has many allies, including in the country’s security forces, and he won a sizable 42 percent of the vote. Former President Gayoom, though no friend of Yameen’s, is also not particularly close to Solih and Nasheed, and has autocratic tendencies of his own. Finally, Solih may find it hard to renegotiate contracts with China, as Sri Lanka discovered even when it democratically changed governments and tried to renegotiate Chinese loans for the Hambantota port, before eventually handing it over to China in 2018. India may find that despite a willingness of the new government in the Maldives to accommodate its strategic and economic interests, it will be hard to break free of China.