Opposition: Nasheed encouraged to solve deadlock issue

Speaker of the Parliament and former President Mohamed Nasheed on Tuesday urged the MP of opposition coalition to work towards finding a solution for the Parliament being in a deadlock.

After no-confidence motions were lodged against both Nasheed and Deputy Speaker Eva Abdulla, they have excused themselves from presiding over Parliament sittings.

Parliament regulations dictate that the Speaker can only excuse himself for three consecutive sittings. Hence, the last three sittings, were chaired by Vilufushi MP Hassan Afeef.

As the three days granted in the regulations were up, citing that there is no room to hold a further sitting, the Parliament did not convene today.

However, Nasheed was pictured speaking with some parliamentarians from Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) and Peoples National Congress (PNC) in the Parliament courtyard.

The opposition coalition also held a press conference to voice concerns over Parliament coming to a halt. Speaking to the press, minority leader and Eydhafushi MP Ahmed Saleem said that Nasheed asked to find a way to move on with Parliament sittings, an d encouraged to work towards that.

“Speaker was very sad that Parliament is not functioning, and then gave encouragement to us. Parliaments lack of functioning is something that very much embarrasses him. President Nasheed urged us to really work to open Parliament, and that he wants it to go on. He s very much effected by this.”

In addition to this, Saleem said that with the current situation Nasheed is faced with a lot of accusations, and so he asked for that to be resolved as well.

The opposition accuse the government of orchestrating the double no-motion as a means to stop the Parliament and to silence their voices. Moreover, the allege that this way the government can prevent its decptions from coming out into the public.

Nasheed has stated that Parliament will proceed only when one of the motions are withdrawn, and the opposition backs this as well.

Opposition further says that with the majority on their side, Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) can chose to resolve this. But this remain as is since MDP, nor the government has any intentions of moving forward.