Voters in the Maldives yesterday went to the polls to decide their next president in an election seen as a referendum on whether to hitch their fortunes to China or India, both vying for influence in the tropical paradise.
Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih faces an uphill battle to secure a second mandate after working to improve strained relations with New Delhi, the archipelago nation’s traditional benefactor.
Frontrunner Mohamed Muizzu helms a party that presided over an influx of Chinese investment money when it last held power and has signaled a return to Beijing’s orbit if he wins.
Photo: AFP
Muizzu won a first-round election earlier this month, taking 46 percent of the votes, but finishing ahead of Solih by barely 15,000 ballots.
“Queues formed long before polling opened,” an election official said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
“The Elections Commission is encouraging people to vote early,” he added.
Nearly one-quarter of the 282,000 eligible voters had cast their ballots in the first two hours of voting, the commission said.
Solih and Muizzu voted at separate polling booths in the capital Male, with both telling reporters they were confident of victory.
Polling was to close at 5pm, with the results expected late yesterday or early today.
The Maldives sits in a strategically vital position in the middle of the Indian Ocean, astride one of the world’s busiest east-west shipping lanes.
Muizzu’s party was an eager recipient of financial largesse from China’s Belt and Road Initiative. His mentor, former Maldivian president Abdulla Yameen, borrowed heavily from China for construction projects and spurned India.
Solih, 61, was elected in 2018 on the back of discontent with Yameen’s increasingly autocratic rule, accusing the leader of pushing the country into a Chinese debt trap.
Yameen’s turn toward Beijing had also alarmed New Delhi, which shares concerns with the US and its allies at China’s growing assertiveness in the Indian Ocean.
However, Solih’s restoration of the Maldives’ traditional posture has itself proved controversial, with many in the archipelago disapproving of India’s outsized political and economic clout.
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