President's Office has confirmed that the monthly meeting between leaders of the ruling-coalition did not take place last month.
It was previously decided and announced that the four leaders of the ruling coalition would sit down together with President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih every month in order to strengthen the bond between the coalition partners, and make collective decisions on different political issues.
The ruling coalition leaders are former president Mohamed Nasheed from main-ruling MDP, speaker of parliament Gasim Ibrahim from Jumhooree Party, Home Minister Imran Abdulla from Adhaalath Party and former president Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom from Maumoon Reform Movement.
During the latest press conference by President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, he stated that he is always available to accommodate meetings with coalition leaders, and a meeting has been scheduled for after he concludes then-planned visit to Sri Lanka. However, said meeting has not taken place thus far.
Spokesperson of the Presidents' Office Ibrahim Hood confirmed to AVAS that the meeting has not taken place. These meetings are not scheduled and organized by the President's Office, and date of meetings are decided by the coalition parties, said Hood.
Two meetings between the coalition leaders were held in January to come to a decision on how to tackle the upcoming parliamentary election as a coalition. However, the meetings had been unsuccessful wih no agreements made between the members.
It was previously agreed just ahead of the 2018 presidential election that the coalition partners would divide up the parliamentary seats between them and back each other to win the maximum number of seats for the ruling coalition. However, largely influenced by Nasheed, MDP had decided to dishonor the agreement by contestingfor 86 constituencies in the election. Their decision resulted in clashes with Jumhooree Party, who has now formed an alliance with opposing Progressive Part of Maldives and People's National Congress for the parliamentary election.
