The Parliament chair has rejected the no-confidence resolution submitted against the Speaker of the Parliament Mohamed Nasheed twice as the majority party MDP is once again thwarted in its bid to remove him.
At 09:00 a.m. today, the Parliament session began with only the resolution on Nasheed on the agenda and MP for Vilifushi Constituency Hassan Afeef chairing the session.
Before the work on the resolution began, Parliament Minority leader MP for Central Henveriu Constituency Ali Azim interrupted the session with a point of order questioning the legality of the resolution by MDP.
He went on to say that it was not clear what the nature of the document submitted and when MP Afeef cleared it up, MP Azim said that as per the Parliament standing order, any resolution submitted to the Parliament must have some characteristics.
Azim said that MDP's resolution does not meet these characteristics and pointed out that the document did not have an introduction as per the Standing Order. He added that this resolution cannot be allowed to be submitted for debate.
Surprisingly, MP Afeef said that he accepted this argument and proceeded to wrap up the session after declaring that the Parliament rejected MDP's resolution. He added that MDP should re-submit the resolution if it wishes to move forward with Nasheed's removal.
Pandemonium ensued in the Chamber with MDP MPs gathering around the chair's seat and protesting MP Afeef's decision.
MDP then held discussions with the Parliament Secretariat and then scheduled a second session for today at 11:30 a.m. In another twist, Deputy Speaker of the Parliament Eva Abdullah, who was on medical leave today, chaired the session.
But unsurprisingly, the Deputy Speaker also supported MP Afeef's decision to reject the resolution and said that the Parliament cannot move forward with a rejected resolution.
Eva said that the chair for the earlier session rejected the resolution as part of an answer to a point of order and that the resolution in its current form cannot be accepted.
She then went on to wrap up the second session for today.
