Maldives government is witnessing chaos as the Opposition threatens to impeach pro-China President Mohamed Muizzu. Meanwhile, the Maldives’ coalition government including Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) and People’s National Congress (PNC) has said they would not allow efforts to remove President Mohamed Muizzu to proceed through Parliament.
The Opposition party in Maldives, Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), which also holds a majority in Parliament, is planning to submit a motion to impeach Mohamed Muizzu, according to media reports on Monday.
“We will not allow them any opportunities to go ahead with this. They will have to kill us all first before they can even think of removing the President from office,” PPM Parliamentary Group (PG) leader Eydhafushi constituency MP Ahmed Saleem (Redwave Saleem) was quoted as saying by The Edition.mv.
The development in Maldives parliament comes a day after clashes broke out in Parliament on Sunday between pro-government MPs and opposition lawmakers over differences over the approval of four members of the pro-China President’s cabinet.
Further, on Monday, the Maldives’ Parliament approved only one of the four members of pro-China President Mohamed Muizzu’s cabinet against whom the main opposition MDP has issued a three-line red whip.
After the MDP and The Democrats’ parliamentary group decided to withhold parliamentary approval for four members of Muizzu’s cabinet ahead of the voting, the pro-government MPs from the PPM/PNC coalition initiated a protest, obstructing the parliamentary sitting.
The decision to submit an impeachment motion was taken unanimously in the Maldives parliamentary group meeting of the MDP held on Monday, The Edition.mv reported. Notably, a minimum of 53 votes are required within parliament to remove a sitting president.
The Maldives Parliament, which has 87 members, had recently amended its standing orders to make it easier to submit an impeachment motion. The MDP and Democrats, together, have 56 MPs between them; 43 MPs from MDP, and 13 from Democrats.
The gathering of signatures for an impeachment motion against the Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu comes a day after the PPM-PNC coalition, with the endorsement of 23 lawmakers, submitted no-confidence motions against Speaker Mohamed Aslam and deputy speaker Ahmed Saleem – both from MDP.
The Maldives Parliamentary elections are due in mid-March.
Soon after taking oath as the President of Maldives on 17 November last year, Mohamed Muizzu, who is regarded as a pro-China leader, formally requested India to withdraw its military personnel from his country, saying the Maldivian people have given him a “strong mandate” to make this request to New Delhi.
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Published: 30 Jan 2024, 09:07 AM IST