Opposition has no other option but to submit a motion to impeach president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, jailed former president Mohamed Nasheed said on Monday.
Hours after president Yameen appointed a new top court judge as the new Supreme Court representative to the country's judicial watchdog, the ex-president took to Twitter to fire the impeachment warning.
"President Yameen's latest egregious actions regarding the judiciary leave no option but to submit a motion for his impeachment," the self exiled former president wrote on Twitter.
Nasheed was jailed on terror charges after he was convicted and sentenced to 13 years in prison over the arbitrary detention of a sitting judge while he was president.
He now lives in self imposed exile in the UK after he was allowed to leave to Britain on medical leave in an internationally brokered deal in January last year.
According to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) law, the term of a member is five years, but the Supreme Court had slashed the term of its representative in the commission to two years.
Judge Ali Hameed who is Areef's predecessor has already served his two year term in the JSC.
President Yameen meanwhile, is struggling to regain his control over the parliament after 10 ruling party lawmakers backed an opposition led move to unseat parliament speaker Abdulla Maseeh.
After months of political strife which led to the jailing of several top politicians over contentious charges, the main opposition leaders including former presidents Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and Nasheed penned a historic treaty to work against the government.
The opposition has since diverted its focus to weaken the government through the parliament. The efforts received a major boost on Monday, after the opposition wrested parliament control from the government, securing the signatures of 45 lawmakers to file a fresh censure motion to unseat the parliament speaker.
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.
