Will pressure MPs until they resign: Imran

President of Adhaalath Party Sheikh Imran Abdullah has said that if the parliament continues to fail to function according to the wishes of the people, Members of Parliament will be pressured to resign in a similar manner as former President Mohamed Nasheed.

Imran said while speaking at a function held by the National Movement at Artificial Beach last night as part of the series of events under the theme ‘People’s parliament back to the people’, that the parliament will be dissolved if it is not conducted according to the constitution.

“God willing, we will dissolve the parliament if it is not conducted according to the constitution. If they don’t want that, they should follow the constitution. We want the parliament to be an honourable place,” he said.

He said that action cannot be taken under the Parliament Privileges and Powers Act against anyone for talking about the parliament, and that the Privileges and Powers Act is not a valid law.

“The Supreme Court has the authority to declare void laws that are enacted in violation of the constitution. So the recently-made Privileges Act and Political Party Act for which protests have been held after they were returned without ratification, are void. No action can be taken based on the void articles in these laws. We are not concerned about being accused of violating MPs’ privileges,” he said.

He said that members of the National Movement may be summoned to the parliament, fined or given a sentence in order to intimidate them, but if this is done, Maldivian citizens will take to the streets to take action. He said that if the parliament tries to ‘put tape on the mouths of the people’ who talk against the parliament, it means that the parliament is working to destroy democracy.

Imran said that the privileges of 250,000 citizens are being violated by about 70 people, and that the people will not stand back and watch this happen.