MALE (Reuters) – The Maldives heads for a parliamentary election on Saturday with President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih seeking a majority for his party to investigate debts to China, which it fears could run as high as $3 billion and risk sinking the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since he unseated pro-China leader Abdulla Yameen in September, Solih\u2019s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), which has governed in a coalition with three other parties, has warned that a building boom has left huge debts to Chinese lenders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Maldives, a tropical archipelago in the Indian Ocean with some 260,000 voters, has been caught in a battle for influence between India and China, which invested millions of dollars during Yameen\u2019s rule as part of its Belt and Road plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The MDP has pledged to investigate the infrastructure projects and determine the islands\u2019 true debt to China, which it says could be as a high as $3 billion. Yameen denies any wrongdoing in relation to the Chinese debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The MPD currently only has a majority with the support of its coalition partners, including The Jumhooree Party, which has been absent from votes to begin any graft investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe president has not been getting the support and cooperation he needs,\u201d MDP spokeswoman Afshan Latheef said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s vital that the MDP gets a majority in parliament in order to fully investigate corruption and embezzlement, to seek justice for those disappeared and murdered and to fulfill the pledges of the government,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Jumhooree leader, parliament speaker Gasim Ibrahim, could not immediately be reached for comment. In past he has said appointing commissions to conduct inquiries is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Jumhooree Party and Yameen\u2019s Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) are both campaigning on a nationalist, religious platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gasim has said an MDP majority would allow it to push for a secular Maldives and build churches and temples in the Muslim-majority country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The MDP, which is competing against its current coalition partners in many constituencies, has fielded candidates for 85 seats in the 87-member parliament, while the Jumhooree Party has put up 51 candidates. PPM is contesting 50 seats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are no independent election opinion polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last month, Yameen spent more than a month in police custody over a graft scandal aimed at siphoning money from the islands\u2019 tourism board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was released on bail on March 28 in time for the last week of campaigning, and denies the charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MALE (Reuters) – The Maldives heads for a parliamentary election on Saturday with President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih seeking a majority for his party to investigate debts to China, which it fears could run as high as $3 billion and risk sinking the economy. Since he unseated pro-China leader Abdulla Yameen in September, Solih\u2019s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), which has governed… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3447,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3446\/revisions\/3447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}