A furstrated and dejected president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom on Wednesday asked to be removed from the ruling Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) parliamentary group's Viber group after an outpour of complaints from lawmakers over the government.
President Yameen has been struggling to regain the government control over the parliament after 10 government lawmakers backed an opposition led censure motion to unseat the parliament speaker.
According to screenshots of the PPM PG Viber group, the president had looked to constitute a special committee comprising of senior PPM lawmakers and cabinet ministers to expedite government processes for lawmakers.
However, president Yameen's latest move failed to convince most lawmakers as complaints flooded over the lack of support from senior MPs, cabinet ministers and the government for their respective constituencies.
Most lawmakers said such committees constituted in the past had failed to address their concerns.
"It's okay. I don't want to beg anyone to do what needs to be done," Dhaandhoo MP Assad retorted.
After futile attempts to calm the flood of complaints, president Yameen's own frustrations appeared to spill over.
"So much complaints. Please don't do this," president wrote.
But the president's plea did not appear to have the desired effect as lawmakers battling their own frustrations continued their outpour of complaints.
The president finally seemed to have had enough and resorted to sarcasm.
"So I haven't done anything for any MP and the government has done nothing to develop your constituencies."
Chief government lawmaker Ahmed Nihan Hussain Manik stepped in to salvage the situation urging his fellow lawmakers to "take this positively."
However, the president did not wait around and expressed his desire to leave the group.
"[MP Ibrahim] Falah please remove me."
After the now opposition coalition in March had filed a second motion to unseat speaker Abdulla Maseeh, the government had engineered an amendment to the parliament rules of procedure raising the number of lawmaker signatures required to file a censure motion against the speaker and his deputy from 15 to 42.
The opposition had filed the third censure motion against Maseeh with 45 lawmakers which included ten lawmakers from the ruling party.
