New Delhi: India is taking a wait-and-watch position after the Maldives elected a new president, Mohamed Muizzu, who had campaigned on a platform that was largely targeting the incumbent Mohamed Solih for allegedly allowing Indian soldiers to be stationed on the island nation.Three days after winning Maldives’ fourth multi-party presidential elections, Muizzu met with the Indian high commissioner Munu Mahawar in a courtesy call, who handed over a letter of congratulations from the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.The Maldives election commission on Wednesday issued the official final tally for the presidential elections, with Muizzu ahead of Solih by more than 19,000 votes – a difference of eight percentage points.While Muizzu will only be sworn in next month, he opened his diplomatic door with a series of meetings with foreign envoys on Wednesday.The first in line was the UK high commissioner, followed by the Chinese and Indian envoys.The Progressive Party of Maldives tweeted that Muizzu along with vice president-elect Hussain Mohamed Latheef had discussions with the Indian high commissioner on “further enhancing bilateral relations between Maldives and India”.Pleasure to call on President-elect H.E.@MMuizzu & Vice President-elect H.E @HucenSembeHanded over a congratulatory message from Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi.Look forward to building on our productive discussions to further enhance India – Maldives relationship. https://t.co/gk2p56f3en— Amb Munu Mahawar (@AmbMunu) October 4, 2023Mahawar tweeted that he handed over a congratulatory message from the Indian PM, who had already greeted Muizzu on Sunday morning after preliminary results were out. “Look forward to building on our productive discussions to further enhance India – Maldives relationship,” he tweeted.Earlier, the Chinese envoy also handed over a letter to Muizzu.The meeting between the Indian high commissioner and the president-elect was anticipated as the opposition’s campaign had been to target Solih for his administration’s close ties with India and raising questions about various agreements signed between the two countries.Muizzu had also repeatedly accused Solih of allowing Indian soldiers to operate on Maldivian territory under the guise of operating helicopters.In the first public speech after his electoral victory on Monday night, Muizzu reiterated his campaign pledges, especially his intention to “remove foreign soldiers from the Maldives within the constraints of law”. He had also claimed to be “pro-Maldives”, a response to the label of ‘pro-china’ that is attributed to the PPM-PNC coalition due to the alignment of former president Abdulla Yameen with Beijing during his term. Stating that people had voted for him due to his pledge to send back foreign soldiers, Muizzu said that the “efforts would commence immediately after he is sworn in”.“Therefore, what I have to say to the ambassador who will come to meet me is close relations can be maintained based on this condition,” he added, as per local media outlet Sun.However, it is not known if any of these issues were discussed during the meeting of Mahawar with the Maldives president-elect.The newly-elected ruling coalition is expected to go through copies of agreements signed with foreign countries during the transition period of more than a month.Therefore, Muizzu can only start any process once his presidential term starts formally in mid-November. But, even then, he has only indicated that it will be the start of negotiations.Despite concerns, it is understood that India will wait to understand what the new Maldivian government has requested, especially since both sides will need to deal with each other as close neighbours for the next five years.A foreign affairs advisor in the ruling PPM-PNC coalition Mohamed Shareef ‘Mundhu’ had told The Wire that the foreign troops issue will be a sticking point, but that the new government would like a conversation over it. At the same time, he also acknowledged that India is the biggest security stakeholder in the Indian Ocean region.
