Indian-origin priest elected Seychelles President

Former campaigner for political freedom opposed to India taking island on lease

Seychelles presidential candidate and opposition leader Wavel Ramkalawan casts his vote as he holds his nine-month-old son Amos at a polling station in St Louise constituency, Seychelles, on July 30, 2006. REUTERS file

Sandeep Dikshit

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 25

An Indian-origin priest from Bihar has been elected President of Seychelles, which has a substantial population from the sub-continent.

Wavel Ramkalawan, whose grandfather came from Gopalganj, Bihar, defeated the incumbent Danny Faure, who had visited India in 2018.

Ramkalawan, who was underground for some time during the one-party rule by Faure’s predecessors, is opposed to the “Assumption agreement’’ for handing over an island by the same name to India. In a reflection of the changing political climate in the country, a four-party Parliamentary majority, led by Ramkalawan’s Linyon Demokratik Seselwa (LDS), refused to ratify the agreement inked by Faure’s government.

Also read: Seychelles opposition wins presidency for first time in 43 years

Now with the priest-politician as President, the agreement signed during PM Narendra Modi’s visit to Seychelles in 2015 may have to be drastically revised.

The pact was signed by Faure’s predecessor who had narrowly defeated Ramkalwan by 200 votes. This is especially so because the new President is widely expected to be politically strengthened when the next Parliamentary elections take place.

His party, LDS, which came to power for the first time since Independence in 2016, is poised for a more comfortable majority in the Parliament.

In fact, so keen was India to attain more finality on the leasing of Assumption island that External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s last engagement before the COVID-19 lockdown was with his Seychelles counterpart Barry Faure.

Seychelles politicians across ranks, including Faure, are clear that the agreement cannot proceed without Parliamentary approval.

According to the Seychelles media, as leader of the opposition, the new Seychelles President has been explicit about his party’s unwillingness to ratify the agreement on environmental grounds because Assumption island, that India is seeking, is close to a UNESCO World Heritage site that is home to the world’s largest population of giant tortoises.