With the Southern Command of the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force located respectively at Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram, in southern-most Kerala, New Delhi would not require any military base of any kind in Maldives
Taking the upper hand in what is becoming an unending domestic political one-upmanship centred on the Indian neighbour, the Maldivian defence ministry recently denied former president Abdulla Yameen’s unsubstantiated claims and declared that ‘no armed foreign military personnel are stationed’ in the country. As if in a coordinated move, the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) president and Parliament Speaker, Mohammed ‘Anni’ Nasheed, reiterated that Yameen’s claims were ‘untrue’, a ‘threat to national security’ and to the nation’s ‘independence’, and could ‘destroy relationship with India’.
As in the first round, the second too began with Yameen firing a fresh salvo or two. He claimed ‘foreign troops’ were based in many Maldivian islands, and went on to add that ‘everyone in the government is a slave of India’ and also threatened to ‘terminate all agreements with India’ (if he or his PPM-PNC combine won next year’s presidential polls). Holding out a personal threat of sorts, he said that ‘politicians aiding and abetting Indian military will be held accountable’. At the same time, however, he wanted generals of the Maldivian National Defence Force (MNDF), and not Defence Minister Mariya Didi, to respond/deny his charges, pooh-poohing the official statement that Indian military personnel were technical experts.
Much of Yameen’s references were to the India-funded harbour-base for the Maldivian Coast Guard on Uthuru Thilafalhu (UTF) island. In a statement, thus, the Defence Ministry reiterated that no foreign party would be active in the dock and dockyard under development. The ministry clarified that the MNDF had designed the project, and that the dock and dockyard ‘are in 100 percent control of the Maldivian State’.
From the political sphere, Nasheed as MDP boss too declared that Yameen’s charges about the UTF agreement with India were ‘untrue’. As he recalled, Parliament’s National Security Committee, or ‘241 Committee’, had studied the agreement after he as Speaker sought to end the emerging controversy. Yameen’s PPM-PNC members too were on the panel, and they all got to read the agreement on their computer screens without being given a copy.
A clearer picture may emerge when the High Court first, and the Supreme Court possibly later, rules on the Information Commissioner’s direction for the Defence Ministry to disclose specifics on the UTF agreement to a local web journal, seen as being supportive of Yameen. The ministry’s appeal against the Information Commissioner’s decision is now pending before the High Court.
Personal than national
As government officials explained at the time, both the presentation of the agreement to members of the parliamentary panel and also the denial of a copy both owed to security considerations. On the larger issue, during ‘Operation Cactus’ operation way back in 1988, post-tsunami humanitarian operations and Male drinking water crisis in December 2015 when Yameen was President, India pulled back its military personnel as fast as they were deployed — all three only at the instance and invitation of the elected government in Maldives.
Even more significant is the fact that with the Southern Command of the Indian Navy (IN) and the Indian Air Force (IAF) located respectively at Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram, in southern-most Kerala, New Delhi would not require any military base of any kind in Maldives, especially on UTF island. If anything, it’s farther away from the Chinese ‘String of Pearls’ strategic idea around India, over which there were charges of the erstwhile Yameen presidency (2013-18) yielding. What more, if at all, situated just about 12 km from capital Male, the UTF, as and when fully developed, whatever the plans, could provide a Coast Guard and possibly an air force base, for the nation to call its own.
Incidentally, Yameen and his alliance did not complain when Minister Mariya Didi signed an agreement with the US, titled ‘Framework for Defence and Security Cooperation’, at Philadelphia in September 2022, indicating that the ‘India Out’ campaign is more personal than national. Yet, Yameen’s reasons are far to seek. This is more so, considering that while in the Opposition as now, Team Yameen did not protest loudly when the Nasheed dispensation (2008-12) signed the Acquisition and Cross-Services Agreement (ACSA) with the US.
Domestic opposition to a treaty with the US however grew only when an upgraded agreement SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) was mooted during the intervening presidency of Dr Mohammed Waheed Hassan Manik (2012-13), as it purportedly proposed exemption for US military personnel from domestic laws and freedom for them to carry personal weapons on Maldivian territory. The Waheed government had Yameen’s full backing. The SOFA proposal became controversial even more because the then Opposition had upstaged the Nasheed presidency by directing undefined ‘Islamic nationalism’ as a tool against the GMR Group, after the Nasheed government had contracted the Indian infrastructure major to re-build the Male international airport.
Second-round support
Incidentally, one-time Yameen ally, Ahmed ‘Sun’ Siyam, founder of the Maldivian Democratic Alliance (MDA), has declared that they had no problem about Indian or American military presence in the country. Every nation hosted other nations’ military, and the ‘India Out’ campaign did not bring any benefit to the country, said Siyam, who has been supportive of the Solih government in Parliament. It remains to be seen if he would throw his hat into the ring for the presidential race next year, either independently or as a partner in one or the other alliance. Another of Yameen’s estranged aides, former Defence Minister, Col Mohamed Nazim (retd), has declared that his infant Maldives National Party (MNP) would contest the presidential poll.
For his part, Yameen has scotched rumours that his party would back Gasim Ibrahim, founder of the Jumhooree Party (JP) ally in the ruling coalition, in the presidential polls (in case he was convicted in two pending graft cases, scheduled for trial court verdicts in June — and thus electorally disqualified). “We do not want to form political ties with those who betrayed Maldivians,” Yameen said in a possible reference to Gasim, only years after he had become President with the latter’s crucial support in the second, run-off round in 2018. The PPM would contest the 2023 polls, he declared even as the JP too distanced itself from such rumours, which have the potential to sow seeds of suspicions within the ruling alliance.
Proxy war
For all this however, a real problem facing the government leadership is the continuing proxy war within the ruling MDP, where Speaker Nasheed has staked claims to contesting the presidential polls in 2023 by facing off a party primary against incumbent Solih, if it came to that. In a way, the Nasheed-initiated ‘India Out’ law, as it is commonly understood, was among the casualties. After the MDP parliamentary group had cleared it for presentation to Parliament by a single-vote, the party shelved the idea, over the larger question of the draft law’s potential to curb freedom of expression and public demonstration — core values around which the MDP was founded. As may be recalled, the draft bill had sought to criminalise acts that strained ‘relations with friendly nations’ — though, unsaid, it was aimed at Yameen’s ‘India Out’ campaign.
But that’s only a part of the proxy war. More recently, the Solih camp won the second round in party-related internal elections when Mohamed Aslam won the leadership of the 65-strong parliamentary group, 40-25. Solih acolytes also bagged other positions in the parliamentary group. The group had won a majority of national council seats in December last. The grand finale ahead of the presidential primaries, originally scheduled for 16 April but since put off to May owing to intervening Islamic fasting month of Ramzan, is now due in May when MDP would be electing a new chairman.
For the Solih camp, Economic Development Minister Fayyaz Ismail is in fray. Taking him on is Nasheed loyalist, Imthiaz Fahmy, or Inthy, as he is popularly known. In the MDP, the chairman heads the organisational machinery while Nasheed as party president heads the policy and programmes wing, which is of greater importance and for which post, elections are not due any time soon. But under the prevailing circumstances, a victory for either camp would indicate how the general council and the party congress, fixed for August, could decide on issues and personalities.
Party insiders feel that they would lose the whole year leading up to the presidential polls towards next year-end, to avoidable controversies. It would be more so if they were to be followed by party primaries next year. Indications are that Solih too is keen on contesting if there has to be one, though it is said that the party constitution, amended when Nasheed was President, provides for automatic re-nomination of the incumbent. The Nasheed camp says it was a one-off affair, but others contest the claims.
Ahead of the chairman’s election, Nasheed openly declared that Solih as President was sacking his supporters from junior ministerial positions. The other side promptly denied if, and officially. However, no one has explained — nor has any explanation been sought — on the unending number of State and Deputy Ministers that President Solih has appointed in the run-up to the party polls and congress, though the nominees do not carry a Cabinet rank.
This apart, Nasheed has been publicly flagging multiple issues over the past year and unilaterally so — starting with the conversion of the presidential form of government to a parliamentary scheme, with him heading an interim government as prime minister. More recently, he has proposed a shift from the existing ‘first-past-the-post’ system to ‘proportional representation’ of some kind, to ‘make Parliament more representative’. All his moves of the kind thus far have had only a lukewarm response within the party and outside.
Whatever that be, both moves may require a public referendum apart from a two-thirds vote in Parliament, where Nasheed has not been able to carry the party MPs with him wholesale. It became visible almost as soon as the MDP swept the 2019 parliamentary polls, when Nasheed had to step in and offer him for the Speaker’s post, after his nominee faced sure-defeat within the MDP group. Party men feel that Nasheed’s initiatives, if not accepted by the party and followed up effectively, could weaken the MDP’s presidential claims, and also dilute his own political authority. There will be larger consequences for the party and the nation, if the MDP does not introspect — early and collectively — it is felt.
The writer is Distinguished Fellow and Head-Chennai Initiative, Observer Research Foundation, the multi-disciplinary Indian public-policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi. Views expressed are personal.
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