As Maldives elects pro-China leader, uncertainty over India's naval facility construction

Mohamed Muizzu’s campaign for the presidential polls saw him opposing and promising to reverse Solih’s ‘India First’ policy of treating New Delhi as a preferred partner for the Maldives. His coalition partner, Abdullah Yameen, was leading an ‘India Out’ campaign over the past few years.

With the president-elect of the Maldives, Mohamed Muizzu, vowing to remove “foreign military personnel” from his country, uncertainty is looming large over a naval facility that New Delhi is building in the archipelago and which is being seen as a strategic asset for India to keep tabs on China’s forays in the Indian Ocean.

 “The people have told us that they don’t want foreign military (on their land),” Muizzu told his supporters in a rally in Malé, vowing to keep a promise he made during his campaign for the presidential polls to remove India’s military personnel from the island nation.

 The 45-year-old mayor of Malé was a candidate of the opposition alliance Progressive Congress, comprising his own People’s National Congress (PNC) and the incarcerated former president Abdullah Yameen Abdul Gayoom’s People’s Party of Maldives (PPM). He defeated incumbent president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih of the Maldives Democratic Party (MDP) in a runoff last Saturday.

Muizzu’s campaign for the presidential polls saw him opposing and promising to reverse Solih’s ‘India First’ policy of treating New Delhi as a preferred partner for the Maldives. His coalition partner, Abdullah Yameen, was leading an ‘India Out’ campaign over the past few years.

The erstwhile PPM regime led by Yameen had put the Maldives into a debt trap by awarding China’s state-owned companies contracts to build several infrastructure projects – mostly on unsustainable loan terms – ignoring the Indian security interests. Though Beijing’s influence over Abdullah Yameen's regime had resulted in strains in New Delhi’s relations with Malé, that saw a reset after Solih and former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed led the MDP to victory in the November 2018 elections.

The “India Out” campaign gained momentum in the Maldives after New Delhi on February 21, 2021, signed an agreement with the Solih Government to “develop, support and maintain” a harbour at Uthuru Thila Falhu naval base in the island nation. Though the new harbour is being built officially for the use of the Maldives National Defence Force Coast Guard, it is also being seen as a strategic asset that could give India an edge over China, which has been trying to spread its tentacles in the Indian Ocean region.

The 2023 presidential elections saw the PPM and the PNC claim that the naval facility Solih's government allowed New Delhi to build would eventually be turned into India’s military base in the Maldives, thus undermining the archipelago's sovereignty. Solih and his party countered that, claiming that the naval facility would rather enhance the capability of the Defence Forces of the Maldives in exercising jurisdiction and undertaking maritime surveillance of its exclusive economic zone and the islands.

The PPM and the PNC have also been criticizing the Solih government’s decision to keep the two Dhruv Advanced Light Helicopters New Delhi gifted to Malé in 2010 and 2015, although the erstwhile Yameen regime was keen to return both the choppers.

India last year also completed the installation of a coastal radar system, comprising 10 radar stations, in the Maldives to help keep watch in the Indian Ocean.

Not only did the defence cooperation between the two nations expand over the past five years but India also announced, launched and completed several infrastructure projects in Maldives over the past few years to stop the island's drift towards China.  

The victory of the PPM-PNC coalition has caused unease in New Delhi as it may lead to China elbowing out India and regaining its influence in the Maldives.