MDP divided on seat cap despite president, speaker's backing

Ruling MDP MPs on Wednesday expressed dissenting opinions on a proposal to cap the number of parliamentary seats, days after both President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih and Parliament Speaker Mohamed Nasheed voiced their support. 

Leader of coalition partner Jumhooree Party (JP) Gasim Ibrahim had submitted amendments to the constitution to cap the number of parliamentarians at 87.

After the first reading of the bill in parliament, Nasheed had voiced his support for the bill. President Solih, who is the party's senior leader, also announced his support for the bill last week.

The majority of MPs who took part in Wednesday's debate spoke in favour the bill, but many called for further discussions on the amendment and consideration of possible issues that may rise within it.

Hanimaadhoo MP Abdul Gafoor Moosa expressed concern over the bill, saying that he feared capping parliamentary seats could exclude some voices of the public. He noted that every addition to the population of the country was an added perspective, and questioned whether the parliament would be able to accommodate the added perspective by retaining the number of MPs.

"We have to employ this idea; will the peoples’ voices be better heard by locking the parliament in a limit, or by allowing things to proceed as they are," he said.

Moosa added that if the amendment is passed as proposed, the responsibilities and work of some MPs will be burdened.

"Considering the geographical layout of the country, if an MP is assigned five or six islands, we have to consider if the MP will be able to address all the issues in his constituency and monitor them all on a regular basis," he said.

MDP parliamentary group leader, North Hithadhoo MP Mohamed Aslam voiced concerns over the potential "administrative issues" if the constituencies are divided among 87 MPs. He also said that the necessary amendments to the laws should be considered before amending the constitution. 

Aslam called on MPs to consider further changes to the composition of the parliament. The amendment he referred to was about allocating a certain percentage of parliamentary seats to women.

He said that while women make up half of the Maldivian population, the number of female members in the parliament has remained low.

Only four out of the 87 MPs in the current 19th parliament are women. They are: 

Aslam said that it is important to count the women's voice in every parliament. 

Aslam concluded his speech by calling for extensive discussions on the bill. He believes that when such a major amendment is brought, the parliament should also take the opinion of the leaders of all political parties. He called for the bill to be withdrawn.

Ungoofaaru MP Mohamed Waheed also supported further discussions on the bill. However, Waheed called for the bill to be accepted and for wide-ranging discussions to be held among all political parties.

According to the constitution, the population of every 5,000 people is a separate administrative region. The number of MPs has been increasing with each term: