The united opposition on Wednesday filed a fresh censure motion against parliament speaker Abdulla Maseeh.
Opposition Jumhoory Party (JP) deputy leader Abdulla Riyaz said the motion was filed with 51 signatures which included several government lawmakers.
AVAS understands that as many as 15 lawmakers from the ruling coalition which includes Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) and Maldives Development Alliance (MDA) had backed the motion to unseat the speaker.
The Kinbindhoo lawmaker Riyaz said Maseeh's removal was pivotal to the opposition efforts for legislative reform.
The opposition had launched a fresh bid to unseat Maseeh days after the country's Supreme Court reinstated four former government lawmakers who had been disqualified over an earlier disqualification ruling.
Riyaz further urged Maseeh to step-down gracefully before the motion is scheduled for a vote.
After the opposition coalition in March last year had filed a second motion to unseat Maseeh, the government had exploited its majority in parliament to engineer 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.
Undeterred, the opposition had filed a third censure motion a few months later against Maseeh with 45 lawmakers which included ten lawmakers from the ruling party.
However, the ruling party had filed a constitutional dispute case asking the Supreme Court to disqualify MPs who defect or violate party whip-lines and or are formally removed from their respective party.
The top court ruled in favour of the government and the lawmakers were later disqualified while the parliament voided the censure motion.
However, the country's apex court had overturned the disqualifications of four lawmakers earlier this month saying that they had resigned from the party months before its anti-defection ruling and could not be applied in retrospect by the Elections Commission.
The victory on the long drawn disqualifications could set the precedent for the remaining eight lawmakers who had also been unseated over the contentious anti-defection ruling.
The verdict came following the opposition alliance's resounding victory in last month's presidential elections.
