Falah: No tension between Pres Muizzu and Abdul Raheem despite Faisal’s dismissal

Ibrahim Falah, the leader of ruling People’s National Congress (PNC)’s parliamentary group, insisted on Thursday that there is no tension between the party’s top leaders - President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu and Speaker Abdul Raheem Abdulla – despite the recent decision by the President to sack Abdul Raheem’s son Ibrahim Faisal from his cabinet.

After the Parliament’s opening sitting of the year on Thursday morning, during which President Muizzu delivered his annual address, Falah told Sun that all of President Muizzu’s decisions are “well-thought-out”.

The Inguraidhoo representative said that one thing the people can be certain of is that President Muizzu is a leader who will not hesitate to take action in response to wrongdoing, even if the wrongdoing is committed by one of his own children.

“The truth is the President does not factor in any personal relations when making his decisions,” said Falah.

Faisal had been among the original appointees to President Muizzu’s cabinet on November 17, 2023.

He was dismissed from his role as tourism minister on January 28, for reasons that the President’s Office has yet to disclose.

Falah said that President Muizzu has been making institutional changes to protect the assets of the people, and has repeatedly warned he will not hesitate to punish wrongdoings.

However, Falah did not explicitly state that Faisal’s dismissal had been in response to a wrongdoing.

“I want to say that there’s really not much of tension between our Honorable President and Speaker of Parliament as a result of this measure. But since it is his son, he made a statement of sorts in that moment,” said Falah.

Abdul Raheem had been on vacation in Malaysia when Faisal was dismissed.

In an interview to a local media outlet that day, Abdul Raheem publicly admitted to frayed ties between him and President Muizzu for the first time, commenting that “obviously this wouldn’t have happened if we were on good terms.”

But he made no further public comment regarding the decision after that.

He was seen conversing with President Muizzu during Thursday’s sitting.

“The relationship between the President and Speaker is very good now. I’m one of the people to most closely witness this,” he said.

Falah said that media reports of tension between President Muizzu and Abdul Raheem were “completely baseless.”

“The claim that President ordered for him to be dismissed as Speaker of Parliament. That he demanded his resignation. Nothing of this sort happened. There’s nothing happening within our parliamentary group to gather signatures or do anything to dismiss the Speaker,” he said.

Abdul Raheem, the chairperson of PNC, had been absent from the party’s parliamentary group meeting held on Wednesday evening. He has reportedly never missed a parliamentary group meeting in the past if he is in Male’, and usually chairs these meetings.

Faisal’s dismissal followed monthslong rumors of friction between the President Muizzu and Abdul Raheem – once seen as his most powerful ally, having played an instrumental role in his successful 2023 presidential campaign.

Less than a week after Faisal’s dismissal, Mohamed Wajeeh, the father of Abdul Raheem’s son-in-law and legal affairs minister at the President’s Office Hisham Wajeeh, was dismissed from his role as the managing director of Maldives Ports Limited (MPL)

Abdul Raheem previously described his efforts to get President Muizzu to office as “the hardest but most successful” work of his long political career.

After President Muizzu took office in November 2023, he appointed Abdul Raheem as his special advisor. But Abdul Raheem later resigned from the role to successfully contest the 2024 parliamentary elections, in which the PNC won a supermajority of seats in the Parliament. It had been President Muizzu himself who recommended him to the role of Speaker of Parliament