RAVI JOSHI
India’s relations with Maldives and its President Abdulla Yameen have remained problematic since the arrest and imprisonment of former president Mohammed Nasheed in February 2015. This led to the cancellation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled visit in March 2015. Strangely enough, Yameen’s just-ended twoday visit to Delhi comes at a time when there is hardly any sign of a thaw.
Yameen’s style of functioning has earned him huge opposition within the country and abroad, particularly in the Commonwealth. His election to the presidency in November 2013 was mired in controversy with a partisan judiciary seen to be thwarting the clear expression of popular mandate.
Within a year of coming to power, President Yameen got the Peoples’ Majlis to impeach two judges of the Supreme Court – those who did not support the repeated postponement of presidential elections – and sacked the Assistant Attorney General for revealing disproportionate assets of his Tourism Minister
Ahmed Adheeb and his Defence Minister Nazim on the grounds of plotting a coup. Then Yameen went about systematically clipping the wings of his main rivals. Nasheed was detained under terrorism charges and is sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment.
The second most important rival Gasim Ibrahim’s business interests were targeted and he was hit with a $100 million fine for delay in developing the islands that were leased out to him. His bank accounts were frozen, disabling him from paying salaries to thousands of his employees.
Gasim was forced to make a deal with then tourism minister, later elevated to the post of vice president Mohd Adheeb. Adheeb, who was regarded the closest confidant, was later implicated in an assassination attempt on the president and was impeached in November 2015.
Yameen wanted unchallenged power within the country and sought new geo-political equations outside. But there was one major hitch. The required legislations could not be passed without the support of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), the main Opposition Group in parliament led by Mohammed Nasheed.
So, Yameen made a deal with the MDP: They support him in passing a few critical pieces of legislation such as limiting the age of presidential candidates (to block Gasim’s future ambition); leasing out islands to foreigners (read: the Chinese) and he in turn would commute Nasheed’s prison sentence to house arrest. Further, he promised talks with the Opposition parties to end their 3 monthlong protests.
The MDP agreed in good faith and passed the legislations as Nasheed was shifted home on July 19, 2015, but barely a month later Yameen reneged on his promise. Nasheed was sent back to prison with no hope of appeal nor of remission.
In September 2014, Yameen hosted the first ever visit by a Chinese head of state President Xi Jinping, who invited Maldives to join the Maritime Silk Route. Yameen signed a MoU with Xi Jinping awarding the Integrated Development Project of Ihavandhippolu or Ihavan in the northern most atoll of Maldives. The strategic significance of the island lies in the fact that it is the closest point to India and that it lies on the 7 degree channel that connects the main East-West shipping routes of China, South East Asia to the oil producing nations of the Persian Gulf.
In June 2015, Tourism Minister Adheeb announced that Maldives would borrow $400 million from China Exim Bank to develop the runway and expansion of the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport in Male, a contract that was originally awarded to an Indian company the GMR Group that was terminated soon after the coup in 2012 that overthrew Nasheed.
Last week, on April 6, 2015, President Yameen inaugurated the expansion project of the airport – awarding the contract to the Beijing Urban Construction Group. In January 2016, Yameen, under pressure from the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group that includes India, permitted
Nasheed to travel to London for spinal surgery and the latter has sought further extension of his leave from prison. Nasheed’s political future remains uncertain.
It is clear from President Yameen’s speech at the Hyderabad House on April 11 that he was here to offer his sincere ‘thanks’ and ‘appreciation’ for the very steadfast way India has protected the Maldives from the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group.
