In doing so, the voters did not go by the Solih government’s perceptions and propagation of past corruption cases involving the jailed Opposition leader and predecessor President Abdulla Yameen, but chose their own yard-sticks. However, what is equally welcome is the smooth transition that Solih promised in person to the President-elect, which was followed by a public announcement of this transition at his first post-poll news conference. As per the Constitution, Muizzu will be sworn in before the Parliament on 17 November, and both have named ‘transition teams’ to work out the modalities, as in the past. Solih has also put to rest speculation about his leaving the country, and has stated that he will work to strengthen the MDP but will not seek the party ticket again. Specifically, he asserted that he was prepared to be accountable for every action of his government.

Solih had said that, in the MDP, no one person was bigger than the party—an indirect response to his estranged friend and Parliament Speaker, Mohammed Nasheed, who had unilaterally offered to rejoin the parent MDP, after walking out of the party to form the Democrats.

For his part, Muizzu called for unity and prioritising the nation, putting aside past differences. He hoped that the MDP would work as a ‘responsible Opposition’—after the latter promised to do so and to hold the successor government accountable. As if to put down the whisper campaign that he would be acting only at Yameen’s say-so, Muizzu said that ‘no one will hold power over me’. In context, Solih had said that, in the MDP, no one person was bigger than the party—an indirect response to his estranged friend and Parliament Speaker, Mohammed Nasheed, who had unilaterally offered to rejoin the parent MDP, after walking out of the party to form the Democrats. The Democrats came a distant yet possible decisive third in the first of the two-phase polls on 9 September, with a relatively low 7.5-percent vote-share. Solih said that 99 percent of the MDP was opposed to Nasheed’s re-entry.

In his news conference, Solih also reiterated his continued opposition to a change of governance system, for which Nasheed had gotten a parliamentary resolution sent to the Election Commission (EC). Solih told the media that under the people’s mandate, the President-elect deserves a chance, which he would lose if there is a transition to the ‘parliamentary scheme,’ as advocated by Nasheed since before the birth of the current democracy Constitution in 2008. On the question itself, the people voted a year earlier for continuing the presidential system, 62-38 percent.

Solih told the media that under the people’s mandate, the President-elect deserves a chance, which he would lose if there is a transition to the ‘parliamentary scheme,’ as advocated by Nasheed since before the birth of the current democracy Constitution in 2008.

The EC, for its part, has slated the referendum for 29 October, and Parliament is yet to respond to its request for the phraseology of the referendum. All through, Muizzu and his coalition have sided with the presidential system. With the top two parties in the country rejecting any transition to the parliamentary scheme, Nasheed’s party has approached the Majlis to postpone the referendum to a later day, so as to spread awareness about the salient features of the parliamentary scheme to the people.

Historic win 

For Muizzu, it’s a historic win. Entering the fray literally at the eleventh hour, that too in perceived defiance of party boss Yameen, the 45-year-old PhD-holder in structural engineering, had hardly three weeks to campaign, against the full five years that were at the incumbent’s disposal. The other six candidates in the fray too had more time—from months to years—for the campaign in the first round, which all of them lost.

From jail, Yameen wanted the combine to boycott the polls after the Supreme Court upheld the EC’s bar on his contesting the presidency from prison (or, until three years after the completion of his prison term, if applicable). At one stage, it looked as if Muizzu was going on his own, with an overwhelming majority of the Progressive National Congress (PNC)—the party that Yameen had founded after losing the presidency—unilaterally electing him as their candidate. Yameen, who had also inherited the Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), founded by his estranged half-brother and former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, was seen as attesting to the candidacy almost as an afterthought.

Elections-2023 showed that Muizzu could possibly retain much of it and also build on the same in both rounds while the incumbent was losing all along, beginning with silent anti-incumbency, which also contributed to the low turnout in the first round.

Yameen still commanded much of his stand-alone 42-percent ‘conservative’ vote share from the 2018 presidential poll, though Solih had won with the highest-ever 58 percent as the common Opposition candidate. Elections-2023 showed that Muizzu could possibly retain much of it and also build on the same in both rounds while the incumbent was losing all along, beginning with silent anti-incumbency, which also contributed to the low turnout in the first round. It did not exclude the votes that Solih was set to lose to allies, old and new, who had deserted him, either in the first round or the second—and of course, the 7.5-percent polled by the breakaway Democrats’ Ilyas Habeeb that did not return in the second round, as hoped for.

Walk-and-talk 

Muizzu began his post-poll politics with a personal and public request for shifting Yameen to ‘house arrest’, after the latter’s plea was pending for weeks. Solih lost no time in obliging the successor, saying that he respected the mandate and would do it in the ‘national interest’. Throughout the campaign, Muizzu had reiterated that ensuring justice and freedom for Yameen would be his first task as President. After Yameen’s legal team sought his freedom post-poll, Muizzu asked his victory rally to give him time in the matter without taking to the streets.

Yameen’s position and posturing would matter not only in matters of domestic politics—starting of course, with intra-party relations and evolving equations with the President-elect, now and after the latter assumes office—but also in foreign policy matters. India, Maldives’ closest and largest neighbour, was caught in the domestic cross-fire through the Solih-Yameen one-upmanship, which culminated in the PPM-PNC combine’s ‘India Out / India Military Out’ campaign(s) of the past years.

After Yameen’s legal team sought his freedom post-poll, Muizzu asked his victory rally to give him time in the matter without taking to the streets.

As President, Yameen had framed the ‘India First’ foreign policy and the two nations had to arrest the drift in domestic political perceptions first and also reverse the trend later, now under a PPM-PNC dispensation. During his campaign, Muizzu too underscored the nation’s ‘independence’ and the need to remove foreign soldiers—a reference to the so-called Indian military presence. At his victory rally, Muizzu mentioned India by name for the first time, and said that he would talk to the ‘ambassador when he meets’ him and initiate the move on his first day in office.

This was even after Solih, as the outgoing incumbent, had reiterated in his post-poll news conference that his government had ‘not relied on any one country’ as he made no apologies for the India ties and appreciated all assistance from New Delhi during his rule.

Time-tested ties 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as in the past, became the first overseas leader to congratulate Muizzu. “India remains committed to strengthening the time-tested India-Maldives bilateral relationship and enhancing our overall cooperation in the Indian Ocean Region,” he said in a loaded yet matter-of-fact post on social media.

Yes, there are issues, if any, not necessarily between Maldives and India as nation states, but between the elected leadership in one country and the continuing institutionalised mechanism in the other. This unevenness in India’s equations with almost every other friendly nation in the neighbourhood (of course, excluding Pakistan and Afghanistan) needs addressing as New Delhi’s bilateral equations in South Asia are tempered by the latter’s relations with China now, as with the US during the Cold War era. But in the case of China, the threat to India is more than real.

Muizzu’s China exposure was limited to funded projects like the Malé-Hulhule sea bridge and the nation’s international airport of the time when he was Works and Housing Minister under Yameen.

It is equally the case with Maldives, especially when ‘pro-China’ Yameen was in power. Muizzu’s China exposure was limited to funded projects like the Malé-Hulhule sea bridge and the nation’s international airport of the time when he was Works and Housing Minister under Yameen. Yet, Indian and international media reports and analyses have quantified him as ‘pro-China’ (hence ‘anti-India?). It is something that the incoming leader would have to work on. What he does and how he does it and who he does with it will determine the course of bilateral relations with India through the next five years—even as all political parties and leaderships prepare to face the parliamentary polls by April next year.

Between now and then, the new Muizzu government will have to have the MDP-controlled Parliament, or People’s Majlis, clear the new Cabinet, and also pass the new government’s Budget for fiscal 2024, beginning 1 January, apart from debating President Muizzu’s inaugural address to the House, to set the tone for across-the-aisle relations through the coming months and years.

N Sathiya Moorthy is a Chennai-based policy analyst and political commentator