The Maldives presidential election runoff result signals a change in the country’s international relations, as a pro-China candidate defeated an incumbent aligned with India. But little attention has been paid to the restrictions on civil society imposed by the last two administrations. Concerningly, winner Mohammed Muizzu is accused of being the proxy of a former president who took an increasingly authoritarian direction, but the most recent president didn’t do nearly enough to reverse restrictions. It’s time for the new president to signal he can break with the past by committing to respecting and working with civil society.

A change of president is imminent in Maldives following a second round of voting on 30 September. But there seems little prospect of improvement in the country’s restricted conditions for civil society.

President-elect Mohamed Muizzu was the surprise winner of the presidential election’s first round, held on 9 September, when he took around 46 per cent of the vote compared to the roughly 39 per cent secured by Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, the incumbent seeking a second term. As neither got over half the vote, a runoff was held, which Muizzu won on around 54 per cent with Solih trailing at close to 46 per cent.

Civic space under pressure

Solih quickly conceded defeat, thanked voters for playing their part in a democratic and peaceful process and congratulated Muizzu. It’s far from rare for incumbents to lose in Maldives: there’s been a change at every election since the first multiparty vote was held in 2008. But there are concerns that Muizzu will follow the same course as former president Abdulla Yameen, leader of his party, the People’s National Congress.

Yameen, in office from 2013 to 2018, wanted to run again, but was barred from standing by the Supreme Court because he’s serving an 11-year jail sentence after being convicted on corruption and money-laundering charges last year. Critics question the extent to which Muizzu will be his own person or a proxy for Yameen. Perhaps there’s a clue in the fact that already Yameen has been moved from jail to house arrest on Muizzu’s request.

The question matters because the human rights situation sharply deteriorated under Yameen’s presidency. The 2018 election was preceded by the declaration of a state of emergency enabling a crackdown on civil society, the media, the judiciary and the political opposition. Judges and politicians were jailed. Protests were routinely banned and violently dispersed, and protest organisers criminalised. Constitutional rights including the right to privacy, the right not to be unlawfully arrested or detained and the right to appeal were suspended. Independent media websites were blocked and journalists subjected to physical attacks.

Ultimately, Yameen was soundly defeated by a united opposition who capitalised on widespread alarm at the state of human rights. Some positive developments followed, including repeal of the criminal defamation law that had suppressed media freedoms. But many challenges for civil society remained and hopes of significant progress were largely disappointed.

The most worrying trend in this regard is the labelling, smearing and targeting of civil society organisations and individuals who criticise the government.

SHAHINDHA ISMAIL

A restrictive protest law stayed in effect and parliament rejected changing it in 2020. Police violence towards protesters continued, as did impunity. Civil society groups were still smeared and vilified if they criticised the government. Activists have been subjected to growing smears, harassment, threats and violence from hardline conservative religious groups. Women’s rights activists have been particularly targeted.

In 2019, a prominent civil society organisation (CSO), the Maldivian Democracy Group, was deregistered and had its funds seized following pressure from religious groups after it published a report on violent extremism. It now operates from exile. There was a campaign for a similar ban on the women’s rights organisation Uthema.

Ahead of the presidential election, Solih faced accusations of irregularities in his party’s primary vote, in which he defeated former president Mohamed Nasheed. The Electoral Commission was then accused of making it harder for rival parties to stand, including the Democrats, a breakaway party Naheed formed after the primary vote. The ruling party also appeared to be instrumentalising public media and state resources in its favour. Solih’s political alliances with conservative religious parties were in the spotlight, including with the Adhaalath Party, which has taken an increasingly intolerant stance on women’s and LGBTQI+ rights.

Voices from the frontline

Shahindha Ismail is the founder of the Maldivian Democracy Network, which she now leads in exile from Germany.

 

The government is selective about the CSOs it engages with. More critical and vocal organisations receive no cooperation from the government. It has become commonplace over the past four-plus years to brush CSOs off and exclude us from government consultations as ‘unruly troublemakers’. The most worrying trend in this regard is the labelling, smearing and targeting of CSOs and individuals who criticise the government.

Additionally, one of the biggest obstacles the government has placed on civil society work is its systematic refusal to release public information, which violates the Right to Information Law. The government ignores invitations from CSOs that conduct assessments of governance quality, depriving them of the opportunity to discuss their findings and recommendations with government officials. Public expressions of concern and requests regarding the malfunction of government systems generally go unheard and ignored.

The media is coopted by the government, so you rarely see objective or critical coverage of government actions. Media coverage often looks like government PR rather than news. Unsurprisingly, the disinformation that has plagued the campaign, often coming from the government, has only been legitimised and amplified by mainstream media. Civil society has had a very challenging time getting their voices heard.

And the Solih campaign used blatant tactics to influence voters that involve consistently abusing state resources, as civil society has repeatedly denounced.

For instance, on 22 August, two weeks ahead of the vote, President Solih announced a 40 per cent pay rise for all government employees, even though the previous day the value of the Maldivian Rufiyaa had dropped again and the national external debt exceeds US$3.8 billion. Additionally, hundreds of government jobs and promotions were handed out at state-owned enterprises right before the MDP presidential primaries, and increases in financial benefits for health workers, teachers and retired people were announced just months ahead of the election.

Another example of an attempt to buy off voters was the announcement of land distribution to the residents of Greater Malé, the capital city’s metro area. A list of over 19,000 eligible applicants was published in June 2023 and a confirmation list has just been published in August. However, while the government has announced that dredging will begin soon, it is not at all clear how much of the promised land is in reality above water. Large-scale infrastructure development projects such as airports, housing programmes and bridges have also been irresponsibly announced or contracted out with no information about when they will be completed.

 

This is an edited extract of our conversation with Shahindha. Read the full interview here.

Big beasts battle for influence

If the two candidates seemed similar in their attitudes towards civil society, they stood on opposite sides of a geopolitical divide. In recent years Maldives, a chain of small islands in the Indian Ocean with a population of around half a million, has become a major site of contestation in the battle for regional supremacy between China and India. The location is seen as strategic, not least for control of major east-west shipping routes, vital for the transport of oil from the Gulf region to China.

India, the nearer country, has historically had close connections with Maldives, something strongly supported by Solih, who emphasised India as the country’s key strategic partner. But Muizzu, like his predecessor Yameen, seems firmly in the China camp. Under Yameen, Maldives was a recipient of Chinese support to develop infrastructure under its Belt and Road Initiative, epitomised in the 1.4 km China-Maldives Friendship Bridge that links the capital Malé with two islands.

India has come to be a big issue in Maldivian political debate. Under Solih, India established a small military presence in Maldives, thought to be of around 75 people, mostly involved in providing air support for medical evacuations from isolated. But the development of a new harbour funded by India prompted accusations that the government was secretly planning to give India’s military a permanent base.

This sparked opposition protests, under the banner of ‘India Out’, calling for the Indian military to be expelled. These protests faced multiple restrictions, with many protesters arrested. In 2022, Solih issued a decree deeming the protests a threat to national security and stating that they must stop. This high-handed move only further legitimised protesters’ grievances.

Muizzu’s campaign sought to centre the debate on foreign interference and Maldives’ sovereignty. He used his victory rally to reiterate his campaign promise that foreign soldiers will be expelled.

In practice, the new administration is likely to mean a change of emphasis rather than an absolute switch. Maldives will continue to need to trade with both much bigger economies and likely look to play them off against each other, while India will seek to maintain relations in the hope that the political pendulum will eventually swing its way again.

Time to break with the past

International relations were far from the only issue. Economic strife and the high cost of living – a common issue in contemporary elections around the world – was a major concern. And some people likely switched votes or stayed at home out of unhappiness with Solih’s failure to fulfil his 2018 promises to challenge impunity for killings carried out by extremists and make inroads on corruption, as well as to open up civic space.

Neither India, where civic freedoms are deteriorating, nor China, which stamps down on all forms of dissent, will have any interest in whether the Maldives government respects the space for civil society. But there’s surely an opportunity here for Muizzu to prove he’ll stand on his own feet by breaking with both the dismal approach to human rights of Yameen and the increasingly compromised promises of Solih. He can carve out his own direction by committing to respecting and working with civil society, including by letting it scrutinise and give feedback on the big development decisions he may soon be taking in concert with China.

OUR CALLS FOR ACTION

  • The new Maldives administration should ensure that activists and civil society groups are able to carry out their legitimate activities without fear or undue hindrance, obstruction, or legal and administrative harassment.
  • The government should amend the Freedom of Peaceful Assembly Act 2013 to guarantee the right to freedom of peaceful assembly, including by limiting police powers to prevent protests.
  • The government should guarantee media freedoms and ensure that journalists can work freely and without fear of retribution for expressing critical opinions.

Cover photo by Mohamed Afrah/AFP via Getty Images