JJ Robinson

In 2018, the Maldives’ election delivered a shocking upset: Strongman President Abdulla Yameen was ousted by the people. Opposition candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih won a landslide victory in the polls, promising to bring transparency, accountability, and above all democracy back to the island nation. Two years after Solih’s inauguration, what does the Maldives’ political landscape look like?

The Diplomat’s Shannon Tiezzi spoke with JJ Robinson, the author of “Maldives: Islamic Republic, Tropical Autocracy” (Hurst, 2015), about the country’s politics, past and present. According to Robinson, the former editor of the Maldives’ first independent news outlet, Minivan News/Maldives Independent, “The Maldives observes the pageantry of democratic politics, but it is still very much in the latter stages of a bruising transition from decades of autocracy.”

President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih came to office promising to restore human rights and democratic principles in the Maldives. Two years later, what progress has been made?

The opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)’s overwhelming victory in the 2018 election surprised everybody – especially incumbent President Abdulla Yameen, who derailed the promising young democracy in 2013 and spent much of his rule steering it back toward authoritarianism. Showing signs of increasing paranoia, Yameen had alienated and imprisoned key allies, controlling the rest through a combination of fear, bribery, and a thoroughly compromised judicial system. With little in the way of genuine political affection, many supporters deserted him the moment the writing was on the wall.

MDP’s President Solih inherited a mess. Not only had most of the Maldives’ supposedly independent commissions and human rights institutions been gutted, corrupted, or compromised, but there were glaring questions about what do to with Yameen’s former allies, such as former Defense Minister Mohamed Nazim and tourism tycoon Gasim Ibrahim. These characters fell out of favor with the autocrat, but had also been instrumental in forcibly overthrowing the MDP’s first government in the 2012 coup. The MDP, at heart still a party of activists turned politicians, were divided between idealists who wanted to stick to the party’s progressive human rights roots, and the pragmatists, who saw inclusion of the less democratically-salubrious as a necessary compromise for political survival. The tension still exists, and has hindered the government’s ability to address human rights issues including Islamic fundamentalism, freedom of expression, and the rights of migrant workers.

Solih was a cofounder of the MDP, but until he was put forward as a presidential candidate was a background figure overshadowed by former President Mohamed Nasheed. Nasheed, a former political prisoner internationally famous for his environmental advocacy and energetic political idealism, was the MDP’s preferred election candidate. He easily won the primary, but Yameen’s pet courts declared his candidacy invalid and forced his replacement just days before the vote. Solih has shrugged off implications of being a Nasheed substitute by bringing a calm and measured tone to the normally fiery and impulsive Maldivian politics. Nasheed has meanwhile brought new energy to his role as speaker of parliament, using the MDP’s supermajority to repair the damage of both the Yameen era and previous 40 years of dictatorship his own presidency briefly interrupted.

The Maldivian Twittersphere occasionally erupts in speculation over tensions between the two leaders, prodded by the odd factional interest, but this is probably overstated. If there’s major backroom disagreement, it’s probably over the degree of tolerance for the corruption of those brought into the new government for the sake of stability. Idealism saved the Maldives from oppressive dictatorship; pragmatism may stop it reverting, but lose it the support of an increasingly cynical grassroots.

One of the key questions about the Maldives’ democratic development is the independence of the judiciary. In early 2018, former President Abdulla Yameen sparked a political crisis when he defied a Supreme Court order to release political prisoners and reinstate opposition members to Parliament. Instead, he arrested two of the judges behind the ruling. What role did this crisis play in Yameen’s electoral defeat later that year? And what is the state of the Maldives’ judiciary two years into the Solih administration?

It is no understatement to say the majority of the Maldives’ problems of the past decade involve its failure to reform the judiciary during the first round of democracy in 2008. Among its achievements, the Supreme Court alone has annulled elections, seized control of its own watchdog body, unilaterally dismissed members of commissions and the legislature, jailed political prisoners, and routinely disbarred lawyers it finds inconvenient.

The bench had been handpicked by the former dictator – Yameen’s half-brother, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom – and operated as the punitive rubber-stamp arm of the executive, with judges openly boasting of their loyalty to the former regime and “100 percent” conviction rates. Half the 200-odd judges and magistrates had less than seventh-grade education, while a quarter had criminal records ranging from embezzlement to violence and sexual misconduct. Gayoom retained control of the judiciary – who regarded him as something of a paternalistic figure – stacking the judicial watchdog with cronies and reappointing them for life under the new constitution. International consultants would naively turn up to conduct “training” of judges, without realizing they were already perfectly qualified for their intended purpose: protecting the dictatorship, temporarily inconvenienced as it was by a bout of democracy.

This control passed to Yameen, who used it to criminalize his political opponents and grant impunity to his supporters under a veneer of judicial propriety. Far from an assertion of independence, the Supreme Court fracas in February 2018 was a fight for control between Gayoom and Yameen after the latter arrested Gayoom’s son, Faris. The estrangement of the autocrat half-brothers undoubtedly contributed to Yameen’s defeat in September’s election, when Gayoom’s support base deserted him.

Challenging a compromised court system is no easy task – one brave Maldivan judicial advocate who attempted it in 2011 barely survived after she was stabbed multiple times in broad daylight. The international community is quick to criticize rogue executive power, but unwilling to challenge crooked judiciaries that launder regime edicts with the waft of respectability. Longstanding critics of the Maldivian justice system were vindicated in August 2019 with the release of a savage report by retired South African Justice Johann Kriegler, describing the Supreme Court as a “major threat to democratic rule” due to its “unlawful conduct over the last decade.”

Happily, judicial reform is now a major – if ongoing – success of Solih’s government. With its parliamentary supermajority, the MDP has been able to reform the judicial watchdog and reappoint much of the Supreme Court, adding, for the first time in the apex court’s history, two female justices. Whatever the government’s failures in other areas, a reformed justice system gives the fledgling democracy a fighting chance in the long term.

In late 2019 Yameen was convicted on money laundering charges. But in March 2020, the High Court rejected an order to freeze his assets. What influence do Yameen and his allies still wield in the Maldives’ political arena?

Yameen’s conviction was noteworthy not because he was found guilty – his multi-million dollar petroleum and money-laundering schemes are legendary among Maldivians – but because ensuring a fair hearing meant wholesale judicial reform before the case could even cross the threshold of a courtroom. Despite this, earlier in October the Supreme Court upheld the High Court’s unfreezing of Yameen’s assets not directly linked to his embezzlement. This may have been pragmatic horse-trading – “here’s your money, tell us where the bodies are buried” – or it may have been the product of rare judicial due process. It may also give him room to maneuver politically again. The jury is out.

The Maldives observes the pagentrary of democratic politics, but it is still very much in the latter stages of a bruising transition from decades of autocracy. Yameen’s Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM) might resemble an opposition but much of its support base is ephemeral, inherited from Gayoom after a vicious struggle for control of the party won by the younger brother. The party still puts out belligerent statements and has allies in the private media, but possesses little real political power due to the MDP’s supermajority. The opposition power vacuum is no doubt intriguing to former Yameen allies like his Home Minister Umar Naseer, a disgraced and thuggish former policeman, but so far nobody has been brave enough to take it up.

Most of the politicians, oligarchs, and crimelords (or combinations of all three) who helped Yameen come to power were rewarded with jail, exile, asset freezes, or accusations of treason, treachery, and terrorism. These people are not democrats and are at best fairweather friends to the MDP, with lists of petty grievances and alarmingly short memories. It is not unthinkable that they would reenter into coalition with Yameen over perceived slights from the new government. The government’s apparent need to hand out ministerial posts to keep them on side is pragmatic and suggests the political ecosystem is still delicate. Overwhelming MDP dominance in the polls was no obstacle to the old regime’s 2012 coup.

Violent extremism has been a growing problem in the Maldives, highlighted by an Islamic State-claimed attack earlier this year. By some estimates, the Maldives had more citizens join IS per capita than any other country in the world. What steps has the Solih government taken to combat violent extremism and deradicalization, if any?

In February this year a group affiliated with the Islamic State stabbed two Chinese nationals and an Australian on the island of Hulhumale next to the capital, the first attack on tourists since the 2007 Sultan’s Park bombing. While nobody was killed and three men were arrested, videos appeared promising further attacks. Solih’s government estimates there are at least 1,400 Maldivians in the country who subscribe to violent extremism – a not insignificant number given the small population. Thoughts of the 2019 Easter bombings in Sri Lanka and its effect on tourism will weigh heavily on the new Maldivian authorities.

Yameen ignored and indulged the extremists. Violent criminal gang members were radicalized in the country’s prison system, used for killings and political purposes, and allowed to flee abroad. At least 173 Maldivians and their families travelled to Syria to fight with ISIS and al-Nusra, 59 of whom were confirmed to still be alive in December 2019 (Solih’s government is trying to repatriate and rehabilitate women and children still stranded there).

Violent Islamic radicalism is relatively new to the Maldives, thought to have grown out of Saudi-sponsored proselytizing in the wake of the 2004 tsunami. Religion is baked into the constitution: The Maldives asserts itself as a “100-percent” Islamic country. There is no distinction made between religion and citizenship, making apostasy akin to statelessness.

No law can be passed “against a tenet of Islam,” which means whichever power in the country happens to be interpreting this – conservative scholars, religious political parties, Salafist NGOs – have outsize influence on the country’s politics.

Gayoom and the old regime have a long history of successfully wielding religion as a political weapon, framing adversaries as anti-Islamic. It’s a climate that has seen moderate scholars, journalists, and bloggers kidnapped and stabbed to death merely for calling for tolerance. Others have been forced to flee the country in fear of their lives. There is a quiet diaspora of Maldivian refugees and students living all over the world, looking over their shoulder.

On its own, the MDP is rather progressive – but in Maldivian politics this is an exploitable vulnerability, used as justification for the 2012 coup. Pragmatic and tenuous alliances with religious groups have led to disgraceful episodes, like the government’s caving in to pressure and shutting down a widely-respected human rights NGO in November 2019. The Maldivian Democracy Network’s crime was publishing a report in 2015 critical of rising fundamentalism – particularly in the education sector.

Yameen was widely seen as “pro-China,” leading many analysts in India to celebrate his defeat. How has Solih approached the relationship with China? Has he lived up to the “pro-India” dreams many in Delhi had?

Under Yameen the Maldives became an international political pariah, abandoned by all but China and Saudi Arabia. India – to its subsequent regret – acknowledged the 2012 coup as a legitimate transfer of power, with other countries following suit despite police and military openly rioting in the streets. Yameen leaned on xenophobia and anti-India sentiment to nationalize and evict the country’s largest foreign investor – airport developer GMR – and by 2016 had handed the international airport to the Chinese. Indian naval helicopters gifted to the Maldives were returned. Indian public and political sentiment, rarely in agreement, were apoplectic.

Yameen took credit for major Chinese-led infrastructure projects, such as the “Friendship” bridge connecting Male with the urban spillover island of Hulhumale. The incoming government labelled these debt traps, with an inflated bill of $3.1 billion the country had no hope of ever paying off, given its GDP of $4.9 billion. The Chinese side asserts the figure is “highly exaggerated,” more like $1.4 billion.

The issue is likely to be moot. Solih’s government regards India as the regional power and is unashamedly pro-Delhi. For its part, India has been unable to believe its luck at a second chance in the Maldives and has shovelled millions of dollars in cash and aid into its tiny neighbor – most recently $250 million in urgently-needed budgetary support. As to the Chinese bill, the Maldives has a record of ignoring inconvenient debts, and the risk of Chinese influence is probably overplayed to keep India enthusiastic with its checkbook. The helicopters have been regifted, boatloads of medical staff sent over to assist with the COVID crisis, and tons of food medicine have been airlifted into the country. China has been quiet, given the turn of its own political fortunes – it may have realized by now it bet too heavily on the wrong horse and has nothing to gain by being bellicose.

On September 10, the Maldives signed a defense pact with the United States. From the Maldives’ perspective, what was the rationale behind the agreement?

The Maldives might be famous for its resorts, but it is a highly strategic country that should be viewed less as a small island nation and more as a large ocean territory. Almost 80 percent of the world’s maritime oil shipping passes through Indian Ocean chokepoints, including channels in the Maldivian atolls. At 15-17 million barrels of oil a day, the Maldives is a conduit for the supply of oil from the Gulf to East Asia: South Korea, Japan (and China) rely on this for fuel. Moreover, the U.S. has one of its largest and most secretive naval bases at Diego Garcia, just 400 kilometers south of Maldives. The U.S. leases the islands from the U.K., which depopulated the Chagos inhabitants in the 1960s. The International Court of Justice has declared this illegal, and in May 2019 the Maldives was one of only six countries to vote against a U.N. resolution endorsing the verdict (116 countries voted in favor, 56 abstained).

If this explains U.S. interest in the Maldives, what does Solih’s government gain? Successive Maldivian governments have flirted with signing a U.S. Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), but this defense pact is vague. Despite Solih’s election victory, Maldivian democracy is still tenuous. The rampant impunity of the 2012 coup was terrifying and the experience of being dragged through the street by rampaging security forces should still be fresh in the minds of the MDP’s leadership. Investing the U.S. security apparatus in continuity of democratic governance in the Maldives is a shrewd backup plan.

How is COVID-19 and the ensuing economic crisis playing out in the Maldives, a country heavily dependent on tourism revenue?

The Maldives has managed the domestic health impact of the pandemic well. As of late October it had suffered 37 deaths from a total of 11,271 cases, originating from imported cases in March-April. The geography of the islands is conducive to quarantine and reducing the spread of the virus, but the highly congested capital island of Male and cramped living conditions of thousands of maltreated migrant laborers remain bombs waiting to go off.

Maldivians as a population are very health conscious and access to medical treatment has been a major political issue for decades – the newest, egregiously tall government building looming over the capital island, twice the height of any other, is a hospital. Politicians and oligarchs in the Maldives have a long history of forcing people to beg for access to overseas medical treatment in return for loyalty and favors, using their monopoly access to the foreign currency needed for flights and hospital bills. One of Nasheed’s key reforms in 2011 was the introduction of universal health insurance that upended this influence trading. The new government has taken the pandemic very seriously and handled it with notable transparency: the health ministry’s public dashboard updates every few hours with the age, nationality, and condition of every single past and present COVID-19 case.

Nonetheless, COVID’s impact on the Maldives is going to be economically devastating. Ordinarily, the Maldives would welcome around 150,000 tourists a month – in the three months since the border reopened, just 19,000 tourists visited. There has been some effort to promote the destination as safe for “pandemic tourism”: Given the isolation of the resorts, guests can be tested on arrival and permitted to roam freely once their result clears. But second waves of the virus in key European markets – coupled with the rolling economic impacts in these countries as well – bode poorly for the rest of the year – the World Bank anticipates a decline in the Maldives’ GDP of at least 9 percent.

The country also has some additional vulnerabilities due to the structure of its economy. Tourism is not the largest employer in the Maldives (that’s fishing), but it is overwhelmingly the largest earner, indirectly responsible for 60-70 percent of GDP when you include related services. It is also the largest source of foreign currency – up to 90 percent. As an island economy with little agriculture, it is highly import dependent. Foreign currency is needed not just to prop up the government, but to buy food and energy: Imported oil not only fuels transport and inter-island shipping, but powers the electrical generators and desalination plants on every island. Foreign currency means food, lights, and drinking water. India’s September provision of $250 million in budgetary support can be viewed as preemptive disaster relief.