With President Abdulla Yameen taking the Maldives closer and closer to China, the opposition is worried that he may also end democracy in the atoll republic.
The next round of elections are scheduled to be held on September 3, but the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party believes that those would be “managed” by President Yameen, and that would be the end of the short-lived democracy in the country.
The Maldives is new to democracy, with the first multi-party election having been held in 2009 after about three decades of single-man rule by President Moumin Abdul Gayoom. This was followed by a series of political crises, and inept handling of those crises by presidents who have been ousting each other, has led to many believing that the country may slip back into autocratic stability, at the nudging of the Chinese.
If he gets another term in the September elections, “there won't be any democracy in the Maldives,” said Ahmed Naseem, former foreign minister and a leader of the MDP, who is visiting India seeking support for his party's campaign against the Yameen regime. “It will be a dictatorship. China wants it that way, because dictators are easier to handle.”
Naseem has been recounting to officials in the Indian government as well as to the media how the regime has been jailing or exiling opposition leaders, sacking judges, packing the court and packing the election commission, and denying even campaign space to the opposition. “We had to hold a convention of 1200 delegates in a tent,” said he.
The Chinese influence, according to the opposition, has reached a point of no-return. Chinese companies have grabbed as many as 16 islands. Ports are being built which will ultimately berth Chinese naval ships. Most of the infrastructure building work—“roads that lead to nowhere, and bridges that connect nothing,” as Naseem put it—is being funded with loans from China. “By 2020, as much as 30 to 50 per cent of our budget will be used for paying back our debt to the Chinese,” said he.
On the other hand, President Yameen has assured India that none of his actions would endanger India's security, and that he would be better placed to take care of India's interest once he settles into a second term.
“Our northern point is only 70 miles from Minicoy in India's Lakshadweep,” pointed out Naseem who believes that once Yameen manages a second term, the Maldives would have reached a no-return point in its bondage to China. “Time is running out,” said he, asking India to take up the opposition cause and influence world bodies to impose sanctions on the Yameen regime.
While the Chinese are turning the Maldives into their colony, Pakistani radical groups are also actively promoting fundamentalism among the atoll population. The two are together “undermining India's security interests,” Naseem said.