Possibly piqued by the country’s all-powerful ‘resort lobby’ openly challenging his government’s ‘dollar-deposit’ initiative to boost the ever-precarious forex reserves, Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu has got Parliament to pass an omnibus Constitution Amendment Bill, covering four separate areas without much discussion or wider consultations, thus showing up an autocratic streak, with which most of his predecessors had been identified with at some point during their controversial careers.
The non-democratic streak in the man may have already created problems for friendly nations, starting with the closest neighbour India, where he undertook a ‘successful visit’ in matters of economy, politics, and security not very long ago.
Grating that Muizzu is already autocratic, going by the way he got the Constitution amendment rammed through the 93-seat Parliament, where his People’s National Congress (PNC) holds a supermajority of 75 and allies another four, history will judge whether he was a ‘benevolent autocrat’, which has been the claim of his predecessors, whether openly or otherwise. If the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) predecessor Ibrahim Solih (2018-23) was the most sophisticated of them all, his party boss, Mohammed Nasheed (2008-12), was a democracy pioneer who was louder and more dramatic. The other two, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, did it for the longest term of 30 years (1978-2008), while his half-brother Abdulla Yameen (2013-18) showed he was too wise by half, as he lost the presidential poll at the end of the first term.
The four issues that PNC members had flagged in Parliament through proposed pieces of legislation might have been relevant and meaningful at other times. Now, cornered by the diffidence of the resort lobby that was known to have made and unmade governments and parliamentary majorities in the past, it is seen not as an act of courage but one of cowardice and cunning. In fact, the popular support for the president had increased after he insisted that resorts should deposit $500 per foreign tourist in the central bank, Maldives Monetary Authority—not for keeps but only in exchange for local currency, Rufiyya, marked as MVR or Rf—and some of the big names in the industry gave it in writing that they would not abide by the new rules.
Anti-defection law
The resort owners had their reasons and reservations, but that is not the issue any more. Or, so it seems now. Instead, the much-required and well-appreciated need for banning parliamentary defections, now effected through the constitutional amendment, has become political and controversial. It is no more seen as a principled stand by a president who wants to usher in all-round change for the better.
Instead, it is seen as a knee-jerk reaction to taking on the resort lobby and other political rivals, old and new, including those possibly hiding in his PNC’s garb. Yes, his MPs cannot cross over without losing their seats in Parliament, but here is yet another half-baked piece of legislation that does not cover the whole gamut, given the possibilities, as in other democracies with an anti-defection law.
For instance, there is no provision if a bunch of MPs, say, from the ruling party, cross over or resign, and fresh elections are held within the mandatory three-month term, and most, if not all of them, get themselves elected as ‘Independents’ and begin needling the government. Muizzu has already described the resort lobby as a bunch of ‘politicians’ like any other, and he cannot but expect them to play politics more cruelly than ever—but in a more sophisticated way than ever.
Given the resort lobby’s own strategising skills, Team Muizzu should have thought of the day after while drafting the anti-defection law. But then, there are also those who argue that no MP has the courage or need to do it now—if so, they would have spoken against the Constitution Amendment Bill when rushed through in all of nine hours.
Cause to protest
If such thoughts should have caused a sense of political instability of the kind that upset the predecessor Solih dispensation despite the equally unassailable parliamentary majority, it is already here. The MDP cadres launched the first-ever credible protest against the Muizzu government, at least in terms of numbers, the day Parliament voted on the Constitution Amendment Bill, only to be rebuffed by the ruling PNC cadres, leading to a clash that was avoidable but was not—as always.
Yet, Solih’s MDP, with just 12 MPs in Parliament, or People’s Majlis, has a cause to take to the people. The party has always identified itself with democratic causes since its inception and fought many legal and street battles in this regard. The flip side is that the Solih government had piloted an anti-defection bill but could not proceed in the matter after the Nasheed faction in the MDP refused to toe the line. They have now reiterated their demand for a ‘right-to-recall’ and that provision is not there in the present law.
For now, how the otherwise divided party stands as one, to exploit the political leverage that Muizzu has handed over to them unwittingly, though, would decide the future course. The party also lacks a charismatic personality, though each one of the front-line leaders is known and respected. If the idea is to patch up with one-time president and party chief Mohammed Nasheed, who may not be as charismatic as he used to be when he won the 2008 presidential poll, there has been multi-layered opposition to the idea from within the MDP ever since he broke away before last year’s presidential poll.
Even without it, Solih was recently on record that there were four or five presidential candidates for 2028, when alone the next elections are due. Incidentally, President Muizzu rushed through affixing his signature to the Constitution Amendment Bill, the same way it was bulldozed through Parliament. In the process, the government ignored appeals from the Bar Council to have an opportunity to express their concerns over the bill.
Yes, Muizzu has completed only one year in office—and that is the timeline he has chosen to take the battle to the enemy ranks, multiple otherwise, and possibly a unified one, from now on. It does not mean that the MDP would work with Muizzu’s estranged mentor and former president, Abdulla Yameen, who is still facing criminal cases initiated by the Solih government and who has since reiterated his decision to contest the presidential poll four years hence, after the Supreme Court upheld the Election Commission’s ban on him during imprisonment in a money-laundering case.
Over-politicised, but…
If one of the four aspects of the amendment bill is to check against indiscriminate defections by MPs, what do the other three amendments address? First and foremost of them is a clause that empowers the President to appoint the chair and vice-chair of constitutionally mandated independent commissions like the Election Commission (EC) and the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC). True, both of them have been over-politicised through the past years by every government, but the current initiatives make them a mockery—thus denting the ‘democracy image’ that the nation has come to flag since the advent of a new Constitution in 2008.
In an indirect reference involving the Indian neighbour, a clause in the amendment bill declares that foreign troops could be stationed in the country, other than for purposes of training, only with a ‘simple majority’ in Parliament. It may have also addressed such situations as the one that emerged during the violent transition period between Presidents Nasheed and Waheed (2012-13), when a proposal for the Maldives signing the US Status of Forces Agreement for rest and recuperation for American soldiers, who, however, were to be allowed to carry personal weapons and to be bound only by American laws on Maldivian soil. That pact never got signed after social media, still in its infancy, took up the cause in a big way.
Then, there is a clause that declares that Maldivian territory could be altered only through a constitutional amendment with a three-fourths majority in Parliament, against the existing two-thirds. The immediate reference is possibly to the Solih government withdrawing a long-pending legal case before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) under UNCLOS pertaining to rival claims with Mauritius over Chagos.
Though the Muizzu campaign had declared its intention to recall the consent letter that Solih had written to the then Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Jagnauth, the government is yet to follow up on the poll promise. It also remains to be seen if the constitutional amendment in this regard can have a retrospective effect, and if so, if it could interfere with the rights already transferred to a third nation, that too through international fora such as ITLOS.
Yet, the amendment phase may not be over yet. When the bill was rushed through Parliament, the government was toying with the idea of removing the provision for popular referendum for amending certain provisions of the Constitution but did not take it forward. The reasons are not known, but the possibility of a judicial intervention in the matter might have slowed them down. In a way, each of the four amendments since passed and signed into law by the president, all within ten hours or so, too may be challenged before the Supreme Court. For now, however, the opposition MDP has indicated that the party is at best undecided on moving the court, seemingly wanting to keep it all political and hopefully within the legislature.
Amicable way out, but…
In an effort to demonstrate (?) that he has a new political mentor or backer, Muizzu, in a rare gesture for his predecessors, had Gayoom address the annual Victory Day celebrations on November 3 this year. The day marks the Indian armed forces neutralising a mercenary-led coup bid against President Gayoom way back in 1978, in what was code-named ‘Operation Cactus’. Muizzu has since honoured a later-day army chief who had led the counterattack against the mercenaries and also a former education minister under Gayoom, who is credited with spreading and promoting education across the nation’s islands and atolls.
It is still unlikely that it would reap any political benefits for Muizzu, in whose government, one of Gayoom’s two sons, Ghassan Maumoon, is the defence minister from day one. The question is if Gayoom, who is suffering from age-related ailments, would want to intercede in Muizzu’s rift with the resort lobby, whose leaders from the past are beneficiaries of government largesse in land and cash in the eighties and the nineties. It is this that has made the resort owners what they are today—or, at least, a substantial number of the top-heavy lobby leadership. The doubts now also owe to Gayoom’s sharp reaction to the omnibus constitutional amendment, which he wondered was possibly the fastest one passed by a legislature anywhere in the world.
There is speculation that Muizzu, on return from a private visit with his wife to the UK, where their daughter is undergoing higher education, will open negotiations with the resort lobby, so that he could put one worry behind him, before tackling what are mostly political and personally ambitious. It is pointed out how the $500-per-tourist rate was proposed only by a few resort owners as a continuing mechanism to strengthen forex reserves. But when others protested, they caved in—and together, they are blaming the government.
Health concerns
Granting that some amicable way out is found for the dollar issue, there are at least two other issues that could have medium/long-term consequences for Muizzu on the socio-economic front. Reportedly at the behest of First Lady Sajidha Muhamad—and not the religious conservatives—the government has banned the use of e-cigarettes in the country. It has also at the same time increased duties on cigarette imports and cut down on free allowances for tourists.
A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that every smoker may end up spending MVR 5,000-10,000 more on cigarettes a month. It will be even more when there are more family members who have taken to smoking and are unable to quit, at least not overnight. This, over the short and medium terms, could put a hole in every pocket too at a time when the inflation is high, prices are skyrocketing, but incomes remain almost frozen.
Sajidha Muhamad, who was until the other day a senior official in the Health Ministry, is also said to be behind the ‘Aasandha reforms’, pertaining to the government health insurance, introduced by the Nasheed government. The reforms, if it could be called so, relate to certain rationalisation that lays down that the government would cover only the residual part of the insured amount only after all benefits under existing private insurance schemes have been exhausted. As is pointed out, since Aasandha was introduced, private insurance companies were flourishing by collecting premiums without having to dole out anything to the beneficiary.
A third reform that Muizzu has sought to introduce relates to granting a monthly pension of MVR 5,000 per person per month only to those that needed it—and not to all those above the age of 65, as originally envisaged by the Nasheed dispensation when introduced, with an initial dole-out of MVR 2,000. The increase in the dole amount through the past decade and more clearly shows how popular and useful that scheme is. However, Muizzu’s decision is being welcomed by the urban middle class in the capital, Male, who feel cheated or let down by the indiscriminate use/misuse of both the Aasandha insurance and pension for senior citizens.
Today, the question is which of these multiple and often contradictory messages reach the masses, in what form, and to what effect. The coming days and weeks may be crucial for the economy first and political stability next—and who winks first will be keenly watched by all stakeholders. While the general talk is about Muizzu’s ability and courage to stand up to the resort lobby, there are also those who spell out in a muted voice the multiple countermeasures available to them to try and tame the lobby the way none of his predecessors had done—and the way, according to some, the lobby should have been tamed long ago.
The writer is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst and Political Commentator. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.