The speaker of the parliament Ahmed Maseeh will be given 30-minutes to respond to the censure motion filed against him, the parliamentary general committee decided Friday.
The parliament has tabled the censure motion against the speaker for Monday's sitting.
The motion is backed by opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) and a few government lawmakers loyal to the ousted ruling Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, and former government coalition partner Jumhoory Party (JP).
The 30-minute time-frame was proposed by PPM MP of Vilufushi constituency Riyaz Rasheed, and was backed by all of the members of the general committee.
The censure motion will be debated in the parliament for a total of two hours. During that time, Maseeh will get 10-minutes at the commencement of the debate, another 10-minutes at the halfway stage and another 10-minutes at the end.
The MDP lawmakers present at the committee meeting had proposed that the debate be carried out for a total of three hours; however, the proposal did not garner enough support.
The parliament speaker appears unfazed by the censure motion and simply responded by saying that “everything will be alright” when the press questioned him about the motion right after it was submitted to the parliament.
Both the opposition, and the pro-government parliamentarians seem to be confident about swaying the censure motion in their favour.
On Wednesday President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, expressed confidence in emerging victorious in this motion in a ceremony held to welcome new members to PPM. However, shortly after, the opposition held a press conference and maintained that they already have enough signatures for the motion to pass.
The opposition parties have claimed that the motion was filed with signatures of 26 lawmakers while 15 is the required number.
