Parliament belongs to President Muizzu, Abdul Raheem says

Speaker of parliament and ruling People’s National Congress (PNC) Chairman Abdul Raheem Abdulla has said that the Parliament belongs to President Mohamed Muizzu.

Abdul Raheem said this while speaking at the PNC headquarters on Tuesday evening.

Saying that the former President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom will try to woo the lawmakers towards himself, Abdul Raheem noted how the people gave PNC supermajority in the parliament. He said that the lawmakers now in parliament were elected by the people to support the administration of President Muizzu.

"No matter how heartbroken President Yameen is, today's Parliament is President Muizzu's Parliament. It was given to President Muizzu by the people," he said.

Therefore, the members of parliament should remember it and work in cooperation with the President for the benefit of the country and the people, he said.

Abdul Raheem also responded to Yameen's claim that president Muizzu did not know how to govern, after having worked to elect Muizzu, and then quitting both PPM and PNC to form a new party. He said getting a super majority in parliament for the ruling PNC was proof that Muizzu knew how to govern.

"If President Muizzu did not know how to govern, he would not have gotten the majority in Parliament. When President Muizzu won today's majority in Parliament, it was not something that was given to President Yameen," he said.

"When we won the presidency, they said we won it by using a vacant seat [a seat reserved for Yameen during the presidential election campaign]. So we came out [for the parliamentary election campaign] without vacant seats and the people gave 75 seats to Muizzu. Those who ran with vacant seats did not get a single seat out of 93”, he said.

Abdul Raheem was very critical of Yameen on Tuesday. He said there would be no one as loyal to Yameen as he and senior leaders in the PNC.