Maldives in a Tailspin yet Again, Why Is India a Mute Spectator?

Arresting the Vice President for treason reflects the insecurity of Maldivian President Yasmeen, writes Rajeev Sharma

Can you recall a single instance of a country where a sitting President arrested his second-in-command, a Vice President, and that too on charges of “high treason”? Well, before October 24, the question may have been tricky; but you don’t have to think hard anymore.

Maldives has provided an answer. This feat has been achieved by Maldives.

Maldives, a SAARC country of enormous strategic importance for India, has travelled from one crisis to another since February this year when former President Mohammed Nasheed was arrested on terror charges. Since then the Yameen government has sacked and arrested its own defence minister on terror charges and got the parliament to impeach its Vice President.

Allegations Against The Vice President

The new Vice President, who was barely three months old in the job, has been arrested for “high treason”. Ahmed Adeeb, who was hand-picked by President Yameen to succeed Ahmed Jaleel as Vice President, was arrested on October 24, the moment he returned from his week-long visit to China.

Adeeb is alleged to have been behind the September 28 bombing of the Presidential boat which the Maldivian government is seeing as an assassination attempt. However, no details have come forth as to how Adeeb was actually involved in the incident, just as the world doesn’t yet know how former President Nasheed is a terrorist.

All that one knows is that Adeeb used to be a blue-eyed boy of President Yameen, and was his hand-picked choice for the post of Vice President. Just about three months ago Adeeb was the tourism minister. Yameen went to the extent of amending the Maldivian statute to make him the Vice President.

President Yameen’s Insecurities

Under the Maldivian Constitution one couldn’t be appointed to the high office of Vice President if the incumbent were to be below the age of 35 years. Adeeb is 33. The statute was amended to make Adeeb eligible for the post, a case of the Yameen government stitching its coat around the button.

As per the Maldivian constitution, a vice president automatically succeeds the president if somehow the latter is simply not available. This is the only available circumstantial evidence against Adeeb. No hard evidence of his alleged involvement in the September 28 presidential boat bombing incident, which the Yameen government is treating as an assassination attempt, has thus far been disclosed.

All this essentially points to the acute insecurity President Yameen is suffering from. The development may perhaps be seen as the manifestation of an existential crisis that Yameen seems to be facing.

Maldives in Turmoil

• Maldives now has the dubious distinction of being a democratic country where the president got his own vice president arrested on charges of “high treason”
• Yameen government in Maldives is in a tight spot after impeachment of an earlier vice president and the slug fest over Nasheed’s arrest
• Maldives, of immense strategic importance to India, has seen China’s shadows lengthening at an alarming pace

Current Crisis

There are only two possible ways of looking at the dramatic development of Adeeb’s arrest. One is that he was actually involved in a criminal conspiracy to assassinate the president. And the other is that he is being framed.

This question can be answered only if the government gives hard evidence of Adeeb’s involvement in the said case. Time is at a premium for the Yameen government.

If the Yameen government is not able to come up with a convincing answer as to why it has arrested its own Vice President for as serious a charge as “high treason” then the chances are that it embroils itself further in the ongoing political slug fest over former president Nasheed’s arrest.

This would inevitably give much needed ammunition to the opposition in an already acutely politically fragmented country like Maldives.

After all, President Yameen has a track record of resorting to extreme methods in tackling overt political dissent and covert political threats, real or imaginary. After all, hasn’t he already arrested his own defence minister on criminal charges and impeached his own Vice President earlier through the government-controlled parliament?

India Needs to Take a Call

But in all this, India is nowhere in the picture. No statement has come from India on the development. Chances are that New Delhi may not come up with any statement at all.

This in many ways signifies India’s frozen turbulence with regard to Maldives. Here is an important but difficult neighbour which is getting sucked into the cesspool of political uncertainty with every passing day. This is not a good sign for India particularly when Chinese shadows are lengthening in Maldives.

Perhaps India is much too busy with the third India Africa Forum Summit it is currently hosting. But it definitely needs to take a call on the current political crisis in Maldives. The sooner, the better!

(The writer is an independent journalist and a strategic analyst who tweets @kishkindha.)