Parliament Speaker Mohamed Nasheed says he has no stance on a Constitutional amendment to allow for the extension of current local councilors as the local council elections scheduled for April is most likely to be delayed amid the Covid-19 crisis.
Concluding today’s parliamentary session, Speaker Nasheed said in the past two days, 57 MPs have debated on the bill to further extend the terms of councilors until the local council elections.
Nasheed highlighted the majority of the MPs argued against constitutional amendments in their debates. He said MDP has the super majority in the parliament right now and that it can amend the constitutional and extend the presidential term if it wants.
But he said, constitutional amendments must be brought about considerately but the Speaker had not viewpoint on the amendments being debated.
MPs have been pushing back constitutional amendment arguing that the country was exercising a State of Public Health Emergency amid the Covid-19 crisis and claiming amendments under such a situation may be legally possible.
But recently Maldives Attorney General Ibrahim Riffath claimed that the country was not under a declaration of State of Emergency and thus there will be no restrictions on amending the country's Constitution
