The main-ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP)'s HEnveiru Central MP, Ali Azim, has threatened to seek a no-confidence vote against President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.
In a tweet posted on Saturday, Azim, who is a close associate of MDP President and Parliament Speaker Mohamed Nasheed, said if MPs loyal to President Solih sought a no-confidence vote against Nasheed, the effort would be mirrored against President Solih.
Last year, in an interview with AVAS, MDP's Parliamentary Group Leader Mohamed Aslam said enough signatures had been gathered to impeach Nasheed as the Parliament Speaker.
"I do not intend to take the initiative to do such a thing [to impeach President Nasheed]. However, there is already a no-confidence motion with enough signatures to remove President Nasheed," Aslam had said at the time.
The pro-government MDP MPs are unhappy with Nasheed as he is biased when speaking at the Parliament. Aslam described Nasheed's actions as a big mistake and said such actions on the part of President Nasheed had created further problems within the party's parliamentary group and made it difficult to resolve them.
According to the Constitution, a no-confidence motion against the Parliament Speaker can be passed by a simple majority. Therefore, while there are currently 87 members in the Parliament, a no-confidence motion against the Speaker can be passed with the votes of 43 members. A no-confidence motion against the Speaker cannot be moved without a resolution signed by 22 MPs.
