Yesterday

Former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom has said that the decision made by the Parliament yesterday to establish secret voting at the Parliament for no-confidence motions against the President, Ministers and Heads of Independent Institutions, could hijack the entire system of the country.

Gayoom said this in a special interview with Sun Online today. He said that the decision also contradicts the constitution.

“This is clearly stated in the constitution. Parliament Members can conduct secret votes only to elect the Parliament Speaker and Deputy Speaker. The constitution does not state that secret voting can be conducted even to remove the Speaker of Parliament from his post. Thus this decision contradicts the constitution,” Gayoom said.

He said that article 88 (a) of the constitution states that procedures and regulations related to the Parliament should be made in a manner that facilitates public involvement, accountability and transparency.

Article 88 (a) states that the Parliament shall “make regulations and principles concerning its business, with due regard to representative and participatory democracy, accountability, transparency and public involvement.”

He said that the constitution clearly states the procedure to be followed for removing the President from office, thus, to create another procedure or law for this purpose would be to undermine the constitution.

Gayoom said that this decision contradicts the two basic principles of democracy of transparency and accountability. As a democratic system should ensure transparency, the public must be informed of how Members of Parliament vote on issues.

He said that the constituents have the right to know how their elected Member of Parliament votes on issues, failing which it would not be possible to hold Members accountable.

“The two most important principles of democracy are transparency and accountability. Every person should be held accountable for their actions. This is not possible with secret voting. So I would say that yesterday was a dark day in the democratic life of the Maldives. It was a day that the democratic system, introduced with the hard work of Maldivian citizens, took a step backwards,” he said.

He highlighted that the decision also encourages unfavourable activities such as Members being persuaded to vote a certain way on issues by particular groups. He said that it could leave the country under the control of a few people who have the ‘means’ to do so.

Gayoom said that if this happens, the Independent Institutions will cease being independent, and at the same time, the judiciary could be threatened, preventing them from making fair decisions in cases that involve Members of Parliament or persons who have the means to influence decisions.He said that this could result in irrevocable losses to the nation.