After tumultuous elections in which the pro-Beijing candidate pledged to rebalance relations with New Delhi, the president-elect of the Maldives, Mohamed Muizzu, said he intended to bring the Indian Ocean archipelago together.
“No matter their political affiliation, they are all Maldivian citizens in front of me,” Muizzu told supporters after his win late Saturday.
“They are entitled to the same rights. They are entitled to equality in everything.”
China did not immediately respond to his victory, but on Sunday, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Muizzu.
New Delhi is “committed to strengthening the time-tested India-Maldives bilateral relationship”, Modi said in a post on the social media platform X.
The Maldives, an atoll chain 800 kilometers (500 miles) across the equator that is most known for its upscale beach resorts, is situated on one of the busiest east-west shipping lanes in the entire globe.
In the run-off election, 45-year-old Muizzu received 54 percent of the vote, forcing incumbent Ibrahim Mohamed Solih to admit defeat just before Saturday’s midnight.
“He has started work on drawing up his team”, a source close to Muizzu said Sunday. “He wants a smooth, peaceful transition”.
Solih, 61, who will serve as caretaker president until his successor is inaugurated on November 17, declared the usual working day of Sunday a holiday.
Streets were quiet across the island capital Male on Sunday morning.
Muizzu told a meeting with Chinese Communist Party officials last year that his party’s return to office would “script a further chapter of strong ties between our two countries”.
The outcome undermines Solih’s initiatives to change the nation’s diplomatic stance towards New Delhi since he assumed office five years ago.
When Muizzu asked Solih to release his mentor and former president Abdulla Yameen from prison and place him under house arrest in the nation’s capital, Solih did not respond right away.
Yameen, who is currently serving an 11-year term for corruption committed between 2013 and 2018, was a proxy candidate for Muizzu.
