Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa's Layover in the Maldives: Why Was He Let In?
The Maldives was reportedly a layover stop for Rajapaksa to flee to Singapore on a Saudi flight.
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After Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's house was stormed by angry protestors on 9 July, reports emerged that he had fled the country. It turned out, he was taken to the Maldives on his Air Force aircraft, and then to a resort in Malé, the capital, on Wednesday, 13 July.
According to some reports emerging on Thursday, Gotabaya has now left the Maldives on a Saudi flight, and has landed in Singapore. The Maldives was, therefore, a layover stop.
Why did the Maldivian government decide to let Gotabaya enter in the first place? The answer seems to be twofold – history and realpolitik.
The Friendship Between the Political Elites
"The political elite of the Maldives has had a significant relationship with the Sri Lankan political elite, especially when the democratic movement was springing in the Maldives in the late 1990s," Aditya Gowdara Shivamurthy, a Junior Fellow with ORF's Strategic Studies Programme who focuses on South Asia, told The Quint.
Those ties have been maintained since then. The Rajapaksa family is known to be closely tied to Mohamed Nasheed, the former president and now the Speaker of the Maldives.
Even before Nasheed assumed power in 2008, members of his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) would frequently have meetings in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital.
"Nasheed, however, is just the House Speaker, and the ultimate authority lies with the president, or at the very least, the defence minister or the foreign minister. So it seems like its a joint decision made by the MDP," Shivamurthy added.
He also added that because Gotabaya flew in on a military aircraft, it would have needed some sort of approval from the defence ministry, meaning that it was not Nasheed's decision alone.
The Realpolitik factor
The main opposition party in the country, the Progressive Party of the Maldives, has categorically opposed Rajapaksa setting foot on Maldivian soil.
"We are betraying our friends in Sri Lanka by accepting Rajapaksa, a hated figure in that country," a PPM leader told AFP.
This, however, combined with the protests by the Maldivian people including the Sri Lankan diaspora, may not be the government's biggest concern.
"At the end of the day," Shivamurthy argues, "it boils down to realpolitik, I think the Maldivian government is also a bit skeptical of the chaos that is unfolding in Sri Lanka. During the civil war and Sri Lanka's fight with the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam), there was an attempt by the PLOTE (People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam), an LTTE offshoot group, to overthrow the government in 1988."
"Even when it comes to maritime safety, the Maldives and Sri Lanka are close partners."
India too has been accused of aiding Rajapaksa's exit. The High Commission of India in Sri Lanka, however, has categorically denied "baseless and speculative" media reports that it facilitated the Sri Lankan president's escape to the Maldives.
"The High Commission categorically denies baseless and speculative media reports that India facilitated the recent reported travel of @gotabayar @Realbrajapaksa out of Sri Lanka," the high commission tweeted.
"It is reiterated that India will continue to support the people of Sri Lanka as they seek to realise their aspirations for prosperity and progress through democratic means and values, established democratic institutions and constitutional framework," the statement added.
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