MALDIVES strongman President Yameen Abdul Gayoom conceded that he lost Sunday’s election to his challenger Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, in a speech broadcast live on television Monday, according to the international media. Mr Yameen congratulated Solih and said, “I know I have to step down now.” The Election Commission said voter turnout in the country of 400,000 people was 89.2 percent where Solih had won the nation’s third-ever multiparty presidential election with 58.3 percent of the vote. Solih, 56, became the Maldivian Democratic Party’s presidential candidate after its other top figures were jailed or exiled by Yameen’s government. Party leader and former President Mohamed Nasheed, in exile in Sri Lanka, had hoped to run again but was disqualified because of an outstanding prison sentence in the Maldives.
The election of Maldives has drawn attention across the globe while India and China, jostling for influence in the Indian Ocean along with a competition to hold a grip on the island nation, had been “watching” the election closely. Mr Solih is known as a pro- Indian politician supported by the USA while the defeated leader Mr Yameen was a pro-China politician. When China was holding grip on India’s trusted friends in South Asian region one after another like Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka, the win of Solih would undoubtedly allow India to sigh a relief.
India terms Solih’s win as “triumph of democracy” but China was taking time for a comment. The US State Department congratulated the Maldives’ people for having a peaceful, democratic vote. Earlier, the European Union had said that it was not sending election observers to the Maldives and the US had threatened to sanction Maldivian officials if the elections were not free and fair. We do remember that a State of Emergency was declared in Maldives in February with suspension of the Constitution.
No doubt, Mr Yameen’s concession and the results were a surprise to Maldives’ opposition, who had feared the ruling party would rig the vote in their favour. Since getting elected in 2013, Yameen had cracked down on political dissent, jailing rivals – including his half brother and the Maldives’ first democratically elected President – and Supreme Court justices.
But whenever Maldives’ people got a chance they outright rejected the authoritarian rule and voted for democracy.
