The Parliament will allow Speaker Mohamed Nasheed a total of 30 minutes to respond to the motion of no-confidence tabled by 48 members of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)’s Parliamentary Group, the legislative body has agreed. The 30-minute response was proposed by Mohamed Shahid, MDP Member of Parliament (MP) for the Funadhoo constituency, in the form of three 10-minute segments at the beginning, middle, and end of a total two-hour no-confidence proceeding.
The remaining time, of one and a half hours, will be taken up by MPs debating the motion and would be divided among the parties in proportion to the number of party affiliated MPs. Each member will be given one three-minute opportunity.
The proposal was passed by the Parliament General Purpose Committee with the support of four out of six members present. Two MPs from The Democrats, Ali Azim, MP for the Medhu Henveyru constituency, and Ilyas Labeeb, MP for the Addu Hulhudhoo constituency, voted against the motion.
MPs Azim and Labeeb argued for a total of two hours to be counted, excluding the floor’s administrative proceedings. However, committee members stated that the time allocation proposal, as originally presented, was consistent with the rules and procedures of the parliament.
This is the second time the MDP has attempted to remove Nasheed as Speaker. The MDP withdrew its initial no-confidence motion as it attempted to seek support from The Democrats, Nasheed’s new break-away party, for the second-round run-off after its candidate, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, finished second in the first round of the presidential elections. The decision to revisit this issue came after the MDP’s defeat in the presidential election runoff.
Nasheed, as Speaker, then contended that it would be difficult to entertain another no-confidence motion within the same term, an assertion partly based on Article 89(c) of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament, which states that a rejected bill cannot be reintroduced in the same term. However, legislative experts point out that no-confidence motions are different from bills and as such the parliamentary secretariat later announced that it would accept the MDP’s motion.
Following the submission of the second no-confidence motion, Nasheed, as Speaker, contended that it would be difficult to entertain another no-confidence motion within the same term. His assertion was partly based on Article 89(c) of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament, which states that a rejected bill cannot be reintroduced in the same term. However, legislative experts point out that no-confidence motions are different from bills and as such the parliamentary secretariat later announced that it would accept the MDP’s motion.