Maldives polls today testing President Muizzu’s ‘ India-out’ policy

Mali, Maldives: Maldivians will on Sunday respond to President Mohamed Muizzu's anti-India stance in a parliamentary poll, news agency AFP reported.

The island nation in India Ocean has been in the news since President Muizzu began moving the country away from its ‘traditional benefactor’, India.

The subsequently, he visited China affirming his country’s changed international diplomacy, raising protest within the country.

In the process, Maldives stretching around kilometres (500 miles) across the equator with a chain of 1,192 coral islands, has become a ‘geopolitical hotspot’.

The 45-year-old Muizzu came to power in September last year as ‘ a proxy for pro-China ex-president Abdulla Yameen,’ the report said.

Showcasing his country’s increasing cooperation with China, Muizzu reportedly handed Chinese state-owned companies huge infrastructure contracts last month.

Alongside, in a move to further distancing from India, Muizzu administration is taking steps to send home 89 Indian personnel that operate aircraft gifted by India to patrol the country’s maritime borders.

Meanwhile, Former President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s pro-India Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) wants to stop Muizzu tilting Maldives towards China.

"Geopolitics is very much in the background as parties campaign for votes in Sunday's election," AFP quoted a senior aide of Muizzu as saying.

Muizzu came to power promising to send back Indian troops and the aide reportedly said the President is ‘ working on it’.

As the politics in the island nation is roiling with splits happening in parties including Muizzu’s People’s National Congress (PNC), it looks like no single party can win majority, according to the report.

Around 285,000 Maldivians will vote on Sunday and the results will come out early Monday.