Parliament speaker and former president Mohamed Nasheed has expressed concern over the harassment of the parliament’s secretary general and counsel general by social media activists of the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP).
MDP, which holds parliament majority, has also criticised the secretary general and counsel general for not calling for a meeting of the general affairs committee.
The party wants to remove Eva Abdulla from the deputy speaker post after she left to join The Democrats. The 14-day period given after notice of her no-confidence motion ends today and the motion must be tabled for Monday’s sitting.
But it was not included in the agenda as the general affairs committee has not held a meeting to allocate debate time for the sitting.
The committee work has been at a stand-still since May 17 when 13 MPs left MDP. The composition of the standing committees is based on the number of MPs in the political parties represented in parliament.
As such, the MDP controlled a majority on the committees. But the 13 MPs who left the party had been among those assigned by the MDP to the standing committees. They also included MPs who chaired committees.
Parties held negotiations to reconstitute the committees on Thursday, but no agreements were reached.
Secretary General Fathimath Niusha earlier announced that the motion cannot proceed while the reconstitution of committees is not finalised.
But MDP believes that work does not have to halt while committee reconstitution work is ongoing and MDP activists began criticising Niusha and Counsel General Fathimath Filza accusing them of siding with Nasheed.
Nasheed condemned MDP activists in a statement on Sunday night and said both the secretary general and counsel general are independent positions that work to uphold the dignity of the parliament.
Noting that impeachment motions have been submitted against both the speaker and deputy speaker, Nasheed said the procedure for those motions is clearly stated in the parliament rules. Only the counsel general can advise MPs on the procedure, he added.
“No space should be given to disrespect the secretary general and other officials of parliament,” the statement read.
Nasheed’s statement came after he decided to step away from speaker duties until his impeachment motion is resolved.
