New Delhi: Union Minister of Earth Sciences Kiren Rijiju will be India’s representative at the swearing-in ceremony of new Maldivian president Mohamed Muizzu Friday. Rijiju will visit Maldives from 16 to 18 November, according to a statement by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
Muizzu, the pro-China president-elect of Maldives, defeated incumbent president Ibrahim Solih on 30 September, winning roughly 54 percent of the votes.
“Maldives is India’s key maritime neighbour in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and occupies a special place in Prime Minister’s vision of ‘SAGAR’ (Security and Growth for All in the Region) and the ‘Neighbourhood First Policy’,” the MEA statement said. “This high level ministerial representation from India at the inaugural ceremony underscores India’s commitment to further deepen the substantive cooperation and robust people-to-people ties between the two countries.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had attended Solih’s swearing-in ceremony on 17 November 2018 — an Indian leader’s first visit to the country after Dr Manmohan Singh’s in 2011, according to media reports.
Solih and his party, the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), held a firm ‘India first’ policy and the election was considered to be a referendum on Maldives’ foreign policy orientation.
Muizzu was the minister of housing and infrastructure under the presidential administration of Abdulla Yameen (2013-2018) under whom the Maldives borrowed heavily from China for construction projects. Muizzu was also the mayor of Malé from May 2021 till October this year.
Between 2013 and 2018, the Maldivian government took loans worth $1.74 billion from China for 46 projects — primarily for transport and storage, other social infrastructure/services and energy projects, according to data made available by AidData, the research lab at the College of William and Mary that studies global lending by Beijing.
The overall commitments made by Beijing to Maldives stand at $2 billion in the 22-year period from 2000-2021, according to AidData. Almost all of this debt was raised during the Yameen years.
Between 2018 and 2021, the first three years of Solih’s government, the total overseas financing from Beijing to Malé stood at roughly $6 million, according to AidData.
Shen Yiqin, state councillor and President Xi Jinping’s special envoy, has been reported as Beijing’s representative to Muizzu’s swearing-in. Shen will visit Sri Lanka from 18-21 November after her Maldives visit.
Also read: Why President-elect Muizzu may not be able to remove Indian troops from Maldives ‘overnight’
Victory for ‘India Out’
Muizzu ran on a platform of downsizing India’s influence in Maldives. Starting 2019, the then opposition in Maldives began to criticise the Solih government policy of being close to India, especially after New Delhi offered Malé a $1.4 billion in assistance, an October 2022 report by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) found.
In August 2021, India and Maldives also agreed on the Greater Malé Connectivity Project — to help build bridges and viaducts linking Malé to surrounding islands. India would be assisting the project with $500 million, according to the report by ORF.
The opposition launched its first ‘India Out’ protests in October 2020 — a clarion call based on India’s alleged role in violating the sovereignty of Maldives, the ORF report said. The basis for the call was the presence of Indian military assets in Maldives.
The focus of the campaign was to call on the Maldivian government to ask India to withdraw unarmed soldiers — mostly observers, technicians and pilots — present in the country at the request of Malé, as reported by ThePrint earlier.
The rhetoric behind this campaign led to the Yoga Day clashes in June 2022, when a group of men disrupted a yoga event organised by the Indian High Commission in Malé.
In October, Muizzu announced that he had already begun negotiations with New Delhi to withdraw its military presence from the archipelago, describing the talks as “very successful” in an interview with Bloomberg.
Muizzu also stated that he would like to see a mutually beneficial bilateral relationship, making it clear that Maldives would not host any foreign military presence.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
Also read: India hasn’t lost Maldives to China. But Muizzu’s win shows Delhi was too sure about Solih
