Explained: Brewing political pot in Maldives and what is in it for India

The opposition MDP and the Democrats in the Maldives parliament have prepared an impeachment motion against President Mohamed Muizzu amid a diplomatic row between New Delhi and Male. What are the implications of this for politics in the Maldives and bilateral ties with India? An expert explains to ETV Bharat’s Aroonim Bhuyan.

New Delhi: With the main opposition parties in the Maldives parliament preparing an impeachment motion against President Mohamed Muizzu amid a diplomatic row between New Delhi and Male, the Indian Ocean archipelago nation is faced with political instability ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled to be held in March.

According to reports in the Maldivian local media, the main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), which is in majority in the 87-seat People’s Majlis, has prepared the impeachment motion along with members of the Democrats party. While the MDP has 43 members in the People’s Majlis, the Democrats party has 13. Together, they have 56 members – enough to pass the impeachment motion.

The Sun Online news website quoted an MDP lawmaker as saying that the two parties have gathered enough signatures for an impeachment motion. However, they are yet to submit it. So, what happens if the no trust motion against President Muizzu, seen as pro-China and anti-India, gets passed in parliament?

“This is a completely new situation,” Anand Kumar, Associate Fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses and author of the book 'Multi-party Democracy in the Maldives and the Emerging Security Environment in the Indian Ocean Region', told ETV Bharat. “Earlier, according to the Maldives constitution, the president has to serve the full five years of his term. In case Muizzu gets impeached, this will lead to a tense political situation in the Maldives.”

In December 2023, the Maldivian Parliament’s regulation was amended granting the MDP the power to impeach the President without requiring support from minority parties. The removal of the President can be passed by a two-thirds majority of Parliament, which is 58 out of 87 members. The MDP Parliamentary Group proposed an amendment to change the way the total number of MPs is determined due to the resignation of seven MPs, who have joined the new government of President Muizzu.

With the parliamentary regulation being revised following the resignation of the seven MPs, the total number of MPs now stands at 80. In such a situation, the two-thirds majority stands at 54. The MDP and the Democrats together have 56 members. According to Kumar, if Muizzu wants to sort out the matter outside parliament, he may not have enough supporters to meet the challenge posed by the MDP and the Democrats.

“Remember, Muizzu won the presidential election with the help of his mentor and former President Abdulla Yameen,” he said. “The two leaders have now fallen out.” Muizzu, it may be mentioned, was the joint candidate of the People’s National Congress (PNC) and the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM). Initially, Yameen of the PPM, known for his pro-China stance, was nominated as the joint candidate of the PNC and the PPM. But since Yameen is serving an 11-year jail term due to a money laundering case, he became ineligible to contest the election. As a result, Muizzu of the PNC was nominated as the joint PNC-PPM candidate.

However, after winning the election, Muizzu refused to respond to Yameen when the latter tried to contact him. A miffed Yameen then left the ruling PNC-PPM coalition and formed a new party called the People’s National Front (PNF). Kumar said in case Muizzu is impeached, Vice President Hussain Mohamed Latheef will have to take over. Latheef too belongs to Muizzu’s PNC.

Calls for the removal of President Muizzu have been growing ever since he assumed office in November last year due to his anti-India policies. Ties between India and the Maldives have been on the downswing ever since pro-China Muizzu assumed office as President last year. Muizzu had won last year’s presidential election on a pronounced anti-India plank. He ran an ‘India Out’ campaign in which he called for the withdrawal of some Indian military personnel present in his country. These personnel, numbering less than 100, are primarily involved in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief work in the Indian Ocean archipelago nation. However, after assuming office, Muizzu made a formal request to India to withdraw these personnel.

Last month, the Maldives decided not to renew a hydrography agreement with India citing national security concerns and the safeguarding of sensitive information. The hydrographic survey agreement was signed on June 8, 2019, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the Maldives. Under the agreement, India was allowed to conduct a comprehensive study of the island nation’s territorial waters, which includes reefs, lagoons, coastlines, ocean currents and tide levels.

And then again, the Maldives decided to allow a Chinese vessel to enter its territorial waters ostensibly to do research work. This decision came despite pressure from the Indian government and concerns raised by various quarters about the vessel being a “spy vessel”. India has strongly been protesting the repeated visits by Chinese vessels to the waters of the south Indian Ocean, a region New Delhi considers to be under its sphere of influence.

At the beginning of this month, a political row broke out between India and the Maldives after Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the union territory of Lakshadweep in the Arabian Sea and promoted it on social media as an exciting tourism destination. Though Modi did not mention any other country in his comments, some Maldivian politicians took it as the Lakshadweep being showcased as a rival to the tourism industry in the Indian Ocean archipelago nation. They made disparaging remarks against the Prime Minister and racist comments against Indians in general.

This sparked a social media backlash from Indians, including entertainment world celebrities and sports stars. Many opposition leaders and tourism industry bodies in the Maldives also criticised the Muizzu government for this. Following this, three junior ministers in the Maldives government were suspended.

Following this, Muizzu went on a nearly week-long visit to China. This is a break from the practice followed by his three immediate democratically elected predecessors - Ibrahim Solih, Abdulla Yameen and Mohamed Nasheed - who had made India the destination of their first state visit after assuming office. In fact, after assuming office in November last year, Muizzu made Turkey the destination of his first state visit.

Muizzu further upped the ante against New Delhi by targeting the health sector. Till now, hospitals empanelled under Aasandha, the Maldives’ universal health insurance scheme, for overseas treatment of Maldivian patients were restricted to just India and Sri Lanka, the majority of them in India. The largest amount of money disbursed by Aasandha to foreign hospitals went to Indian hospitals. Over Rs 7.5 billion has been disbursed to hospitals in India during the past 10 years and two months, according to a report in The Maldives Journal news website.

Now, following directives issued by Muizzu, the state-owned Aasandha Company, which acts as a third-party claims administrator, has started work to expand the scope of overseas treatment for Maldivians beyond India and Sri Lanka. The company is now in talks with Thailand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Both countries are leading medical care providers but at a relatively higher cost.

According to Kumar, so far, the conduct of Muizzu has not been friendly towards India. “Muizzu’s conduct is a cause of concern for India,” he said. “Muizzu’s policies are equally concerning as these may harm the regional security environment. New Delhi will be closely watching the developments in the Maldives.”

As part of New Delhi’s Neighbourhood First Policy, the Maldives is strategically significant to India because of its location in the Indian Ocean. India and the Maldives share ethnic, linguistic, cultural, religious and commercial links steeped in antiquity and enjoy close, cordial and multi-dimensional relations. However, regime instability in the Maldives since 2008 has posed significant challenges to the India-Maldives relationship, particularly in the political and strategic spheres.

Although India continues to be an important partner of the Maldives, New Delhi cannot afford to be complacent over its position and must remain attentive to the developments in the Maldives. India must play a key role within the Indo-Pacific security space to ensure regional security in South Asia and surrounding maritime boundaries. China’s strategic footprint in India’s neighbourhood has increased. The Maldives has emerged as an important ‘pearl’ in China’s ‘String of Pearls’ construct in South Asia.

The move on Monday to gather signatures for an impeachment motion against Muizzu came after the MDP-dominated Parliament voted to deny approval to the appointments of Dr. Ali Haidar Ahmed as Housing Minister, Dr. Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed as Islamic Minister, and Ahmed Usham as Attorney General. Violent scenes were witnessed within the parliament while protestors gathered outside. However, soon after the vote, Muizzu reappointed the three ministers to their respective ministries.

Last week, the MDP and the Democrats, a new party formed by former MDP members, held a joint press conference to announce that they have agreed to join forces in parliament to hold the Muizzu government accountable. According to Sun Online, MDP chairperson Fayyaz Ismail said that both parties share deep concern over the current administration’s policies, including its foreign policy and economic policy.

“It is deeply concerning for us to see Maldives’ policies getting shaped in a manner that could create conflict within this region and endanger regional stability and security, and to see all this getting shaped in such a thoughtless manner,” Ismail was quoted as saying. So, what does fate hold for Muizzu? Watch this space.