Winds of revenge were blowing among the paradisiacal palm trees of the Maldives. This has been consummated in this Saturday's elections, which have made the opposition Mohamed Muizzu the new president of the archipelago, in the second round.
The so-called "pro-Chinese candidate" thus causes a reversal of the result of five years ago, which placed the "pro-Indian candidate", Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, in power. Muizzu's victory, however, was relatively close, winning 53.7% of the vote. A much smaller margin than the one he obtained in the first round, three weeks ago, which would indicate that, as expected, the vote for the third in the running, former president Mohamed Nashid, has opted en masse for Solih.
"I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the people of the Maldives. This result today is a great encouragement to us in our quest to build a better future for our country and ensure the sovereignty of our nation," Muizzu said in his first speech.
The emphasis on sovereignty is not accidental. Five years ago, many Maldivians reacted to the growing influence of distant Beijing in the archipelago. However, the return of the influence of neighboring India has been so evident that in a short time it has achieved the opposite effect. "Out with India" or "India, out of the Maldives" has been the winning slogan of the elections. A reply to Solih's policy, whose motto was an undisguised "India First."
Muizzu obtained more than 126,000 votes in the archipelago of atolls, which has around half a million inhabitants, in some cases, such as that of the capital Malé, extremely crowded, despite the postcard image - and reality - of the islets for tourists wealthy and honeymooners, the only ones where champagne or any type of alcohol flows.
Participation, even above 80 percent, is somewhat below other electoral events.
Muizzu, who had until now served as mayor of Malé, was the candidate of the opposition coalition of the Maldives Progressive Party (PPM) and the National People's Congress (PNC).
The participation of this 45-year-old engineer in the Maldives presidential race came as a stroke of luck, after former president Abdula Yamin was imprisoned "for corruption." The reckoning is not new on the islands. Previously it was Nashid, well connected in London and New Delhi and better known as Anni, who was imprisoned several times, under different charges, before and after his presidency.
In fact, the idyllic reputation of the Maldives goes poorly with its dictatorial past and turbulent political present. Both Gayum, Yamin and Nashid have been in prison and have suffered attacks, the last one in 2021.
Muizzu, the dolphin of Yamin - in turn, a relative of the previous dictator, Maumun Abdul Gayum - has had in his favor that the infrastructures of the pro-Chinese stage are visible to everyone. See the bridge that connects the overcrowded Malé with the eastern island that houses the international airport (where they have also built a seaplane port) and then with the next island, Hulhumalé, which is experiencing a real estate boom. On the other hand, the large project financed by India, the bridges that will connect Malé with three islands to the west (part of the same atoll), is still under construction.
What is visible, and controversial, however, is the Indian infrastructure that was completed in record time: a police school on the southernmost island of the archipelago, which is also the closest to the US naval and air base of Diego García. Something that would prove that security comes before development in Indian priorities.
The most controversial point, however, was the transfer of an Indian patrol boat to the Maldivian coast guard. Under this pretext, New Delhi would have deployed 75 members of its armed forces on "maintenance" duties. Something that would have given the opposition its best argument to combat the "handover" of the archipelago to New Delhi. What's more, inri, last May, the Indian Minister of Defense laid the first stone, together with his Maldivian counterpart, of a future dual-use port in the Uthuru Thila Falhu atoll.
In any case, the "gifts" in Chinese or Indian public works are actually the result of low-interest loans, which has triggered the indebtedness of a strategic archipelago but in which just over 300,000 adults live. Although the Maldives have infinitely greater ethnic and cultural affinities with the Indian, Sinhalese, Pakistani or Bengali coast than with China, this does not necessarily work in New Delhi's favor, since it increases the fear of assimilation.
Beijing observes the Maldives with interest, due to its intermediate position in one of the main maritime routes for its exports, towards the Suez Canal, as well as for the supply of crude oil originating in the Middle East. India, in turn, considers the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean as its natural area of influence, although the time when Indira Gandhi called on the British and Americans to evacuate the Chagos archipelago has passed into history.
Likewise, the cultural eclecticism of the Maldivians, all of whom are formally Muslim, has given way in recent decades to a greater Islamization of customs, the result of their contacts with the Persian Gulf. While the government of Narendra Modi, whose party systematically uses Islamophobia as an electoral lever, is not currently India's best business card in Malé.
The foreseeable loss of influence in the Maldivian capital is a minor setback for India, which a couple of years ago managed to recover positions in a troubled, bankrupt Sri Lanka. On the Pearl Island, China then dropped its greatest supporters, the Rajapaksa brothers, for reasons that are not fully explained.
Finally, it should be said that Chinese tourists became the first customers of the lavish Maldivian hotel infrastructure over the past decade. Although some hotels removed the electric kettles to force them to go down to the restaurant to eat lobster, instead of secretly boiling instant noodles, since the pandemic they have not stopped praying for their return.
