The People’s Majlis has voted to reject a no-confidence motion against Economic Minister Mohamed Saeed.
The motion was submitted to Parliament in August, backed by the signatures of 13 members of the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) parliamentary group.
During today’s parliamentary session, the motion failed to pass, with 54 members voting in favour of the Minister. Only 10 members voted in support of the no-confidence motion.
In the motion, the MDP cited six points alleging that Saeed has failed to fulfil his official responsibilities.
The grounds for the no-confidence motion include:
- Failure to responsibly manage state assets and finances.
- Failure to control the rising black-market dollar rate, leading to extreme inflation.
- Obstructing accountability to the People’s Majlis.
- Failure to protect local small businesses.
- Amendments to the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Act that threaten national sovereignty.
- The suspension of major projects following their initial announcement.
The motion further alleges that Saeed misled the public by promising to bring the dollar exchange rate below MVR 15.42 once the government secured a parliamentary majority. However, the exchange rate has yet to decrease to that level.
This marks the third time a no-confidence motion has been brought against a cabinet minister of the current administration. Previous motions were filed against Home Minister Ali Ihusaan and Tourism Minister Mohamed Ameen; however, both were defeated by the ruling People's National Congress (PNC) supermajority.
