MALÉ, Maldives, Sept  30, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - Pro-China frontrunner Mohamed
Muizzu was leading Saturday's presidential vote in the Maldives and looked set
to win a poll that could tip the archipelago nation away from its traditional
benefactor India.

With more than two-thirds of votes counted in the run-off contest, Muizzu
was ahead of incumbent Ibrahim Mohamed Solih with 53.61 percent of the vote.

Official results so far showed Muizzu with just over 113,000 votes against
Solih's 98,000 in the atoll nation, best known for its luxury beach resorts and
celebrity tourists.

An Elections Commission official said they were confident of declaring a
result later Saturday or early Sunday.

Solih, 61, had worked to revert the country's diplomatic posture back
towards New Delhi since winning office in 2018.

Frontrunner Mohamed Muizzu helms a party that presided over an influx of
Chinese loans when it last held power and he has signalled a return to
Beijing's fold if he wins.

Elections Commission officials expected final turnout to top the 80 percent
recorded during the first-round vote from earlier this month.

"Queues formed long before polling opened," one official told AFP,
requesting anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Watchdog Transparency Maldives said there had been some incidents of
"electoral violence" without specifying further details.

Officials said one voter broke open a plastic ballot box, but the ballots
were saved and there was no interruption to the count.

Police reported arresting 14 people, mostly for taking photographs of their
marked ballot papers and sharing them on social media.

- Geopolitical hotspot -

The Maldives sits in a strategically vital position in the middle of the
Indian Ocean, astride one of the world's busiest east-west shipping lanes.

Muizzu's party was an eager recipient of financial largesse from China's
Belt and Road infrastructure programme.

His mentor, former president Abdulla Yameen, borrowed heavily from China
for construction projects and spurned India.

Solih was elected in 2018 on the back of discontent with Yameen's
increasingly autocratic rule, accusing him of pushing the country into a
Chinese debt trap.

Yameen's turn towards Beijing had also alarmed New Delhi, which shares
concerns with the United States and its allies about China's growing
assertiveness in the Indian Ocean.

India is a member of the strategic Quad alliance alongside the United
States, Australia and Japan.

But Solih's restoration of the Maldives' traditional posture itself proved
controversial, with many in the archipelago disapproving of India's outsized
political and economic clout.

Muizzu has vowed if elected to free his mentor Yameen, currently serving an
11-year sentence for corruption on the same prison island where he had jailed
many of his political opponents during his tenure.

The 45-year-old emerged as a candidate after Yameen's conviction barred the
former president from running for public office.