Nasheed wants to stay in office despite no confidence: Aslam

MDP Parliamentary Group (PG) on Monday called on speaker Mohammed Nasheed to resign amid the no-confidence motion filed against him.

The MDP PG requested an extraordinary sitting to conclude the reconstitution of committees and other important works.

The extraordinary sitting held on Monday ended within three minutes on the grounds that the committees could not be formed at this time due to the change in the parliament's composition following the resignation of two additional MPs from MDP.

At a press conference held after the sitting, MDP parliamentary group leader, Hithadhoo North MP Mohammed Aslam said that MPs were invited to Monday’s sitting on Sunday evening. Noting that some MPs were out of town as the parliament was on recess, Aslam said the speaker wanted to prevent the parliament from functioning.

"I still want to appeal to him to run the parliament by rules and resign if he is unwilling to do so," Aslam said at the press conference with two deputy leaders of the party's parliamentary group.

"Now it is obvious that [Nasheed] is not doing this because he wants to stay in position”.

Aslam said:

"Yesterday we submitted the names of the four committees that we decided on. So, that process is over. That's how today's session was scheduled," Aslam said.

The committees will then be formed after the changes in composition are shared with the MPs and the changes to the committees are again proposed and amendments are made to the proposals.

However, Aslam said at the press conference that it was “not known by the rules of procedure of the parliament”. The speaker is not obliged to act in that way, he said.

He added:

Nasheed and Hithadhoo Central MP Ahmed Rasheed left MDP late last month, bringing the number of MDP members in parliament down to 54.