Maldives president-elect Mohamed Muiz said he will stick to his campaign promise to remove Indian military personnel stationed in the archipelago state, promising he would initiate the process.

Muiz told his supporters on Monday night at a celebration of his election victory that he wouldn’t stand for a foreign military staying in the Maldives against the will of its citizens. “The people have told us that they don’t want foreign military here,” he said.

Muiz’s party, the People’s National Congress, is viewed as heavily pro-China.

Muiz’s main campaign theme was about an alleged threat to the Maldives’ sovereignty by some Indian military personnel on an island, part of the party’s yearslong “India out” strategy.

Outgoing President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih insisted that the Indian military’s presence in the Maldives was only to build a dockyard under an agreement between the two governments and that his country’s sovereignty wouldn’t be violated.