It has been a resounding voice from Male, and the message of the ballot box is as profoundly critical for Maldives as it is for China. No less important than the impending change of guard has been the spectacular triumph of democracy. Seldom has the anti-incumbency factor been so pronounced as it has been in the Indian Ocean state.

The electorate has rejected President Abdulla Yameen, and the rebuke must seem extraordinary for a leader who, during his five-year tenure, had jailed political adversaries, even judges. That repressive stint was matched with his geostrategy of drawing his country closer to China. No wonder Beijing, under the monolithic leadership of Xi Jinping, has greeted the outcome with a measure of squeamishness.

Yameen has accepted the decisive result as his opponent, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, a relatively lowprofile stalwart of the movement for democracy, surged to a remarkably convincing lead. In the net, a relatively lesser known leader has trounced the China-backed strongman of Male.

Markedly, there was no attempt by Yameen to cling onto power as many a dictator is wont to do. Mercifully, the peaceful transfer of power comes about through the ballot box, the hallmark of a responsible democracy. And it has happened without violence or military supervision as in parts of South Asia.

Yameen has been somewhat muted in his response to the extraordinary psephological swing. He is acutely aware that he has imprisoned or exiled his main rivals on dubious charges and eroded many of the checks on his power in the past five years. At another remove, Solih has been remarkably gracious in his response ~ “This is a moment of happiness, a moment of hope, a moment of history,” he said.

“For many of us this has been a difficult journey, a journey that has led to prison cells or exile. It’s been a journey that has ended at the ballot box”. In a sense, it has been a victory of the people, and prompt and swift have been the compliments from India and the US.

Solih has promised to restore relations with India, the country’s traditional patron and protector, and to rely less on China, which has the resources to fund the small country’s development. The apparent lack of electoral interference by the outgoing establishment and the very real probability of a peaceful transfer of power has even surprised the Opposition.

The change is set to happen barely seven months after Yameen declared a state of emergency and imprisoned two Supreme Court judges and a former President, in response to what he claims was a coup attempt.

The 89 per cent turnout that yielded the result is an endorsement of a decade-old democratic experiment in the archipelago, one that observers feared was on the brink of collapse. The voter has averted that collapse.