Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu. File.
| Photo Credit: AP

Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu will travel to India on an official visit “very soon”, his spokesperson said on Tuesday (September 10, 2024).

Heena Waleed, the chief spokesperson at the President’s Office, announced Mr. Muizzu’s visit on a day when two junior ministers, suspended in January for derogatory comments against Prime Minister Narendra Modi — resigned from the government.

Also read | With China’s help, Maldives plans to lower dependence on India in tourism, trade and healthcare: Data

She said that while the exact date for the trip is yet to be finalised, the two sides are discussing a date, which is of convenience to the leaders of both countries, the Sun Online news portal reported.

“The President is scheduled to visit India very soon. As you are aware, such trips are scheduled for a time of maximum convenience to leaders of the two countries. Discussions regarding this are in progress,” she said during a press conference.

Mr. Muizzu, known for his pro-China leanings, visited New Delhi on June 9 to attend Prime Minister Modi’s swearing-in ceremony. Unlike his predecessors, who made the first port of call to New Delhi after assuming office, Mr. Muizzu travelled to Turkiye first and to China for his first state visit in January.

Heads of the states from India’s neighbourhood and the Indian Ocean region attended Modi’s oath ceremony. Mr. Muizzu said he was delighted to receive Prime Minister Modi’s invitation and “equally delighted” to have attended the event.

On his return, Mr. Muizzu described his first visit to India as a “success” for the Maldives and the region following talks with India’s top leadership and said that the strong ties between the two countries will lead to increased prosperity for the Maldivians.

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar visited the Maldives in August — the first high-level trip from New Delhi after Muizzu assumed office in November last year.

India’s relationship with the Maldives came under strain since Mr. Muizzu took charge as the President. Within hours of his oath, he had demanded the withdrawal of Indian military personnel manning three aviation platforms gifted by India to the Maldives. After talks between the two sides, the Indian military personnel were replaced by civilians.

Things escalated after three Maldivian Deputy Ministers made controversial remarks regarding India and Prime Minister Modi on social media.

Maldives Foreign Ministry distanced itself from their remarks, saying they do not represent the views of the Male government.

The three junior Ministers were suspended, and two of them — Mariyam Shiuna and Malsha Shareef — resigned on Tuesday.

The Maldives is one of India’s key maritime neighbours in the Indian Ocean region and the overall bilateral ties, including in the areas of defence and security, witnessed an upward trajectory under the previous government led by President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.

File photo of Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu.
| Photo Credit: AP

India has withdrawn all its soldiers from the Maldives, the government here has said, ahead of the May 10 deadline set by President Mohamed Muizzu for the complete withdrawal of Indian military personnel from his country.

President Muizzu, widely seen as a pro-China leader, had set May 10 as the deadline for the withdrawal of the Indian military personnel from his country. Repatriation of some 90 Indian military personnel stationed in the Maldives was a key pledge of Mr. Muizzu during his presidential campaign last year.

Also read: Unravelling the shift in India-Maldives relations | Explained 

The last batch of Indian soldiers stationed in the Maldives have been repatriated, confirmed Heena Waleed, President’s Office Chief Spokesperson told Sun.mv news portal, without giving the number of Indian soldiers.

She added details about the number of the soldiers stationed would be disclosed later.

The Indian military personnel were stationed in the Maldives to operate and maintain two helicopters and Dornier aircraft India gifted earlier.

Earlier, the Maldives government announced that 51 of these soldiers were repatriated to India on May 6.

The government earlier announced the presence of 89 Indian soldiers in the Maldives, citing official documents.

India and the Maldives had agreed to withdraw the remaining Indian troops before May 10.

At a media briefing in New Delhi on May 9, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the first and the second batches of the Indian personnel returned to India and “now deputation of competent Indian technical personnel has taken place” to operate the three Indian aviation platforms.

The development came as Maldivian Foreign Minister Moosa Zameer visited India. He met External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on May 9.

They had “extensive discussions” on bilateral ties and regional security issues. The relations between the two countries came under severe strain after Mr. Muizzu insisted on the withdrawal of Indian military personnel operating three military platforms in the island nation.

The Maldives is India’s key maritime neighbour in the Indian Ocean Region and occupies a special place in its initiatives like ‘SAGAR’ (Security and Growth for All in the Region) and the ‘Neighbourhood First Policy’ of the Modi government.

Mohamed Muizzu, Maldives presidential candidate of the opposition party, People’s National Congress, casts his vote at a polling station during the Maldives presidential election day in Male, Maldives, on September 09, 2023.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The Maldives stands at a geopolitical crossroads ahead of its presidential runoff vote with the frontrunner, a former construction minister, set on demolishing India’s influence and building stronger ties with China.

The archipelago nation, better known for its upmarket beach resorts and celebrity vacationers, sits in a strategically vital position in the middle of the Indian Ocean astride one of the world’s busiest east-west shipping lanes.

The vote on the chain of atolls — scattered some 800km across the equator — takes place with growing Western concern at China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific, with rival India part of the Quad, a strategic alliance alongside the United States, Australia and Japan.

Frontrunner Mohamed Muizzu is the protege of former leader Abdulla Yameen, who steered the archipelago towards Beijing’s orbit while in office and became an eager recipient of financial largesse from China’s Belt and Road infrastructure programme.

Muizzu won just over 46 percent of Saturday’s first-round vote with incumbent Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, who presided over a restoration of ties with traditional benefactor India, trailing on 39 percent.

Foreign policy is set to dominate the campaign before the September 30 runoff, with both men sharply divided on managing the India-China rivalry.

Muizzu told an online meeting with Chinese Communist Party representatives last year that a return to power of his Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) would “script a further chapter of strong ties between our two countries”.

Now the mayor of the capital Male, Muizzu also spearheaded the $200-million China-Maldives friendship bridge linking his island city to the country’s main airport while serving in the previous government.

Last month, he marked the fifth anniversary of the bridge by praising the “visionary leadership” of both his patron Yameen and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

But any turn back to Beijing would come at the expense of ties with New Delhi.

“Should Muizzu win, he is likely to reset relations with India,” retired senior civil servant Imad Masood told AFP. “He will not go overboard like Solih did with India.”

Solih beat Muizzu’s mentor Yameen in a landslide election win five years ago and moved swiftly to repair relations with New Delhi.

Yameen had borrowed heavily from Beijing for construction projects during his autocratic rule, a decision condemned by opponents as debt trap diplomacy.

After a legal challenge to his loss failed, Yameen was convicted of corruption and jailed for 11 years, barring him from contesting this year’s vote.

He has instead backed Muizzu to steer a coalition led by the PPM back to office in a Muslim nation home to more than half-a-million people, nearly a third of whom are foreign workers in its tourism industry.

Their party and other activists regularly staged street protests demanding a reduction in Indian influence during Solih’s tenure.

Last year, an Islamist group stormed a football stadium in Male to break up a public yoga session, with police firing tear gas to disperse the protesters.

The campaign has clearly resonated, with Masood saying Muizzu’s “India Out” posture helped him take a comfortable lead by swaying undecided voters.

But ex-Maldives foreign minister Ahmed Shaheed said Muizzu cannot afford to antagonise India and expect a trouble-free tenure.

“He needs to learn from Yameen’s mistakes and pipe down the ‘India Out’ campaign,” Shaheed, also a law professor at the University of Essex in Britain, told AFP.

During his election campaign, Muizzu promised to free Yameen from imprisonment on the remote island where the former president had also once jailed many of his own political opponents.

Loyalists expect the jailed ex-leader to play a key role in government should his proxy win the poll.

Both Muizzu and Solih are scouting for allies among the six other candidates knocked out of the race after Saturday’s first-round vote.

Solih is seeking a reconciliation with the Democrats, a breakaway faction of his party whose candidate polled just over seven percent — a bloc which could tip the runoff.

Eighty percent of the Maldives is less than a metre (three feet) above sea level, making it one of the countries most threatened by rising sea levels linked to climate warming.