Whether or not the ever-circumspect voter in the Indian Ocean archipelago had intended it this way, the one-sided victory for the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) in the April 6 parliamentary polls has ensured political stability for the next five years. It’s something the nation can well do with for economic prosperity as well as constructive foreign and security policies. This much has become sure, what with the voter having returned the MDP-led four-party coalition candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih as president, replacing the controversial Abdulla Yameen in the September 23 polls last year.

It is a double victory for the MDP, whose charismatic leader and former president Mohamed Nasheed led the charge from the front this time. Nasheed had become the president in 2008, but had to quit on 7 February 2012 after a section of the security forces joined Opposition protests, led by religious NGOs, calling for his ouster.

Nasheed, who was in self-exile after the Yameen government got him jailed through court orders, returned only after Solih was elected president. Now, he has won a seat in parliament and will be the leader of the House, when the lawmakers are sworn in on May 28.

Going by provisional figures, the MDP won 65 seats in the 87-member House. Party candidates received as many as 46 per cent of the total votes. This is for the first time since the nation became a multi-party democracy in 2008 that any one party has won an absolute majority in parliament. In the past, post-poll coalitions had rocked political stability, challenged the president’s authority, and at times considered his impeachment, too.

Institutional reforms

With a seat share that has crossed the required two-thirds majority by a comfortable margin, the Solih-Nasheed team can breathe easy on their plans for legislative and constitutional reforms. From before Nasheed was elected president, replacing long-term incumbent Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in the 2008 polls, he and his party have been constantly and consistently talking about institutional reforms aimed at the judiciary and the legislature.

In particular, after Nasheed’s controversial exit, the party was known to be considering the Westminster form of parliamentary democracy for the nation, but it never had the majority to pull it off. Now, fresh demands may arise from within on this score, not all of them conceptual and political. Some may be personal and electoral, as MDP lawmakers and second-rung leaders may seek ministerial positions, which are now held by veterans not only of the party but also of representatives of the three coalition partners who had backed Solih’s candidacy and worked for his victory.

The MDP had ‘ditched’ its coalition partners ahead of the parliamentary polls, with Nasheed ‘unilaterally’ declaring that the party would go it alone, and candidates would be chosen through primaries. Solih’s efforts to alter the situation did not help, and the three allies either fought together after a pact with Yameen’s Progressive Party of Maldives and People’s National Congress combine, or on their own - but all of them against the MDP.

Of them, outgoing Speaker Gasim Ibrahim’s Jumhooree Party (JP) joined hands with one-time tormentor Yameen. Yameen was jailed for a month ahead of the polls, and was released only a week before the election. His huge bank funds, frozen by the lower court, were released by the High Court, but too late to be of much use to his party’s candidates.

The parties of Yameen and Gasim fared poorly despite the leaders’ proven personal popularity, but then the voting pattern between presidential and parliamentary polls has been consistently dissimilar. However, the political future of Gayoom’s immediate family members and followers seem bleak as the Maumoon Reform Movement (MRM) he had launched after losing the reins of the Progressive Party of Maldives to estranged half-brother and then President Yameen, could not find 3,000 voters to seek recognition from the Election Commission. Gayoom’s one-time president-aspirant son, Faaris Maumoon, lost in the parliamentary polls to an MDP rival.

Over the short and medium terms, this could mean that MDP leaders may want to replace current Cabinet members from the JP, MRM and also the religion-centric Adhaalath Party (AP). Among those targeted, AP leader and Home Minister Shiekh Imran may not want to quit, and Gasim is already uninvited, but ministers from their respective parties and the MRM may decide to switch over to the MDP.

Including Vice-President Faisal Naseem, the JP has three Cabinet members, and all three had identified with the MDP ahead of the parliamentary polls. There are other ministers at different ranks from the other two allies, too, and all of them may not be unwilling to sign up for the MDP. But this overcrowding at the top may not be to the liking of the MDP backbenchers, both within parliament and outside, and they can pressure the leadership to switch over to the Westminster model if only to make ministers directly accountable to parliament, as in neighbouring nations such as India and Sri Lanka - and not like in the US, which is the current constitutional position.

Though the MDP came out on top on the promise of more democracy and better reformation of independent institutions under the constitution and others, only a week ahead of the parliamentary polls, Solih expressed regret in a TV show that his hands had been tied when it came to the (avoidable) appointment of many ‘transition directors’, after possibly failing to find cabinet, state and deputy ministers’ slots for aspirants. In a way, he attributed them to “coalition compulsions”, but then the very post of transition director was created for Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid to ensure a smooth power transfer at all levels after Yameen’s electoral defeat.

India policy

Now that they have a stable government and strong parliament, the MDP leadership is sure to probe allegations of corruption and misrule by Yameen, which is an electoral commitment and a political compulsion. Inexplicable to most Maldivian observers and political analysts, Yameen had polled a high 42 per cent vote share against Solih’s 58 per cent, backed as he was by a four-party combine.

While in the normal course, Yameen can contest another presidential poll in a mandatory two-term upper limit in office, Gayoom and Gasim have their electoral fate possibly sealed. The MDP may be shy of reversing the 65-year upper limit fixed for the presidency when Yameen was in power.

However, it remains to be seen how far the Solih government can and will address India’s concerns on geostrategic and security fronts involving China. India and the neighbourhood also has concerns over the spread of Wahabhism in Maldives, and possibly the consequent participation of many youth from the country in the Islamic State-led civil war in Syria. However, some of it may get addressed more directly with India-Saudi ties improving in recent months and years.

The same cannot be said about China as Yameen indebted Maldives’ future by borrowing huge sums for development projects, including the prestigious Sini-Male Bridge, connecting the capital city with the airport-island of Hulhumale. It also remains to be seen if the Solih government could and would selectively rescind on a 50-year lease granted by Yameen to a Chinese company for a resort island, just as they had been given to other foreign entities in the past, including two being held for long by India’s Tata Group.

India’s security concerns on the China front are real, and are medium and long-term concerns. While the Solih government and most other future governments may look at it from a purely Maldivian angle, and would rather settle for a pro-India policy in the matter, a lot would depend on how the nation is able to avoid a Chinese debt trap of the kind faced by Sri Lanka on the Hambantota port.

Only days before the parliamentary polls, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj sent out a political message of sorts when she headed a high-level delegation, including Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale, to Male and presided over the signing of various agreements aimed at providing development aid to Maldives. It was all part of the $140 million package that Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised Solih during the latter’s maiden overseas visit to India last year.

Modi was the only foreign dignitary to be invited for Solih’s inauguration, and he attended the function with usual gusto. Earlier, India had sort of broken tradition and issued strong statements in favour of democracy, especially after Yameen had proclaimed emergency following the Supreme Court’s decision on February 1, 2018 to free Nasheed and other Opposition leaders from prison.

The rest, as they say, is history. Thanks to the change in leadership, the Yameen-era talk of India having to take back the two helicopters that it had gifted Maldives has come to an end. There is greater scope for security and strategic cooperation, though even in the midst of the ‘helicopter controversy’, the two navies had undertaken joint exercise off the Maldivian coast. Maldives also sent in the India-gifted naval vessel for refurbishment and refit to Visakhapatnam, from where the ship sailed back, both during the Yameen presidency - clearly indicating an element of continuity with change, and also change with continuity in matters of security cooperation.

N. Sathiya Moorthy is senior fellow & director, Chennai chapter of the Observer Research Foundation. The views expressed here are personal.