Mohamed Muizzu and his allies only had eight seats in the outgoing parliament
Male:
Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu’s party won control of parliament in a landslide victory Sunday, results showed, with voters backing his tilt toward China and away from the regional power and traditional benefactor of the India.
Muizzu’s People’s National Congress (PNC) won 66 of the first 86 declared seats, according to results from the Maldives Electoral Commission, which is already more than enough to secure a qualified majority in the majlis, or parliament, composed of 93 members.
The vote was seen as a crucial test for Muizzu’s plan to pursue closer economic cooperation with China, including building thousands of apartments on controversially reclaimed land.
The PNC and its allies had only eight seats in the outgoing parliament, the lack of a majority having blocked Muizzu after his victory in the presidential election in September.
The main opposition party, the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), which previously had a supermajority, was heading for a humiliating defeat with only a dozen seats.
Muizzu, 45, was among the first to vote on Sunday, voting at a school in the capital Malé – where he was previously mayor – and calling on Maldivians to turn out in large numbers.
President Dr. @MMuizzu voted in the 2024 parliamentary elections. The voting process took place at the presidential constituency polling station at Thaajudheen School. pic.twitter.com/p4pHuXzx2R
– The Office of the President (@presidencymv) April 21, 2024
“All citizens should come out and exercise their right to vote as soon as possible,” Muizzu told reporters.
The Maldives, a low-lying country made up of some 1,192 small coral islands scattered some 800 kilometers (500 miles) across the equator, is one of the countries most vulnerable to sea-level rise caused by global warming.
Muizzu, a former construction minister, has promised he would beat back the waves with ambitious land reclamation and the construction of higher islands, a policy that environmentalists say could even exacerbate the risks of flood.
The Maldives is known as a luxury vacation destination thanks to its pristine white sandy beaches and secluded resorts.
But in recent years it has also become a geopolitical hotspot in the Indian Ocean, where global east-west shipping lanes pass through the archipelago.
Muizzu won last September’s presidential election as a proxy for pro-Chinese ex-president Abdulla Yameen, who was released last week after a court overturned his 11-year prison sentence for corruption.
This month, as the legislative election campaign was in full swing, Muizzu awarded large-scale infrastructure contracts to Chinese state-owned companies.
His administration is also sending back a garrison of 89 Indian soldiers who operate reconnaissance aircraft donated by New Delhi to patrol the Maldives’ vast maritime borders.
The outgoing parliament, dominated by the pro-Indian MDP of Muizzu’s immediate predecessor Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, sought to disrupt his efforts to realign Maldivian diplomacy.
Since Muizzu came to power, lawmakers have blocked three of his government nominees and refused some of his spending proposals.
“Geopolitics is in the background as parties campaign for Sunday’s elections,” a senior Muizzu official told AFP before the vote, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“He came to power on the promise of sending back Indian troops and he is working on it. Parliament has not cooperated with him since he came to power.”
Solih was also among those who voted early and expressed confidence in his party’s victory. There was no immediate reaction from his party following his poor showing in Sunday’s vote.
Elections chief Fouad Thaufeeq said after polling closed that turnout had already reached 73 percent of 284,663 voters with half an hour of voting remaining.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
