Muizzu names a date for 'comprehensive independence' — and moves the port to Thilafushi

President Dr Mohamed Muizzu used his Independence Day address to set out what he called a programme of comprehensive national independence, to be achieved by 26 July 2028 — the most concrete framing yet of the government's second-half agenda. The task, he said, was to "liberate the nation from longstanding constraints", arguing that "true national sovereignty encompasses social freedom, economic self-reliance".

The headline commitment is infrastructural: the Malé Commercial Port is to relocate in full to K. Thilafushi by 11 November 2027, and to remain under complete government ownership and management when it does. The congested port has sat on the capital's waterfront for as long as the modern capital has existed; moving it to the industrial island has been discussed, and deferred, for decades.

The president also pledged that his administration would be the first in the nation's history to initiate, complete and hand over its housing projects within a single presidential term — a pointed promise in a country where housing schemes traditionally outlive the governments that launch them.

Two new bodies were announced: a Presidential Advisory Council drawn from recipients of national honours, and a National Advisory Council of experts and scholars to advise on key national issues. In a podcast appearance five days later, the president said both would be constituted within three months, and added a further slate — a national service programme for youth, a youth parliament, and a "Maldives 2.0" digitalisation initiative aimed at anti-corruption and citizen-centred services. Legislative reforms to strengthen women's and youth representation in the Majlis were promised alongside.

The address restated two positions the president has made his own. On the Chagos Islands, he reasserted the Maldives' historical claim, saying historical documents prove ownership — a case his supporters ground in a sixteenth-century royal patent and in the Dhivehi-inscribed gravestones of the archipelago. And on Israel, he said the Maldives maintains its stance on actions against Palestinians, and that he was proud to uphold the ban on Israeli passport holders entering the country.

There was politics in the retrospection too. The president said his government had freed the Maldives from "the toxic spirit of political retribution" by declining to jail former leaders, and claimed the greatest democratic freedoms in the country's history — a characterisation the opposition, fresh from its April referendum victory and mayoral sweep, would contest.

The government has set itself a date. Whether "comprehensive independence" reads as a development programme or a campaign frame by 26 July 2028 will depend on what stands at Thilafushi by then.