MP Shareef: Gov must take responsibility of Parliament going into deadlock

MP for Maduvvari and the Deputy Leader of People’s National Congress (PNC) Adam Shareef Umar stated that the government must take responsibility for the Parliaments work being held due to the no confidence motions against Speaker and Deputy Speaker. 

Both Monday and Tuesday’s Parliament sessions were cut short, and of recent none of the tasks on the agenda were worked on. 

Although Deputy Speaker Eva Abdulla’s motion was on Tuesday’s agenda, the sitting ended prematurely as there was no MP assigned with the task of presiding. Parliamentary regulations dictate that the Speaker must appoint an MP to preside over sittings if both the Speaker and Deputy Speaker are unavailable. 

Speaker Mohamed Nasheed has sent a letter recusing himself until a decision is made regarding the no confidence motion against him. 

Ultimately, the secretary general of the Parliament Fathimath Niusha announced the ending of the sitting. 

Voicing concern over the situation, the opposition MP said to Sun that members of MDP would be well aware of the fact that submitting both motions together would halt the work of Parliament. He added that they knowingly submitted so as to put a lock on the Parliament. 

Shareef further said that it was sad to see the Parliament not functioning despite MDP holding majority. 

He also said that the only way to move forward was to take back one of no confidence motions, and that MDP had the choice of doing so. 

However, MDP’s Parliamentary group stands firm on their stance, and has stated in a press conference held on Monday that they would not be retracting either motions. Moreover, they said that as the motions were submitted with a large majority signing in favor, the “nicer” way to go about this was for them to hand in their resignations and remain as ordinary members of the Parliament.

With 13 members of MDP resigning from the party, the work of reappointing committees based on the new composition have not been completed. The opposition say the that in a meeting held with MDP to rush this task, it was clear that they were not willing to “give in”.