A top government lawmaker on Sunday denied making any attempts to meet some of the MPs who after signing the opposition led censure motion against the parliament speaker are in neighbouring Sri Lanka.
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 as many as 10 lawmakers from the ruling party.
Some of the 10 MPs are in Sri Lanka, and a team of top government lawmakers had headed to the neighbouring country prompting rumours that the trip was an attempt to convince the rebel lawmakers to reverse their decision on the censure motion.
However, ruling Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) deputy leader and Inguraidhoo MP Ibrahim Falah who was part of the six member team said the visit was pre-planned to officially launch president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom's re-election campaign.
Falah said the team had not attempted to meet any lawmakers during the visit.
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.
Latest reports within the ruling party indicate that most lawmakers have become frustrated with recent government policies and there remains a real threat that more lawmakers would crossover to the opposition.
