President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has congratulated former president Mohamed Nasheed on being nominated for the Parliament Speaker position by the MDP Parliamentary Group.
In a tweet posted by the President on Monday night, President Solih conveyed warm congratulations to Nasheed and the nominated Deputy Speaker Eva Abdulla, as MDP’s most senior official. In his tweet, he noted that he looked forward to working with the new parliament on behalf of all Maldivians.
In a stunning development, main ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) late Monday nominated former president Mohamed Nasheed as the country's new parliament speaker amid a row that had threatened to split the party in two.
A month after their landslide victory in the parliamentary elections, MDP was facing a major internal rift over the nomination for parliament speaker, with Nasheed publicly backing North-Hithadhoo MP Mohamed Aslam for the post while his longtime friend Ibrahim Mohamed Solih supported Vilufushi MP Hassan Afeef as the speaker.
With the country's two most powerful leaders at loggerheads over the nomination, the entire party was headed towards chaos trading verbal blows on social networking sites.
Nasheed had earlier stated that he had no interest in pursuing the position of Parliament Speaker. However, when MDP's parliamentary group gathered to vote on the nomination on Monday night, the 65 member group including both Aslam and Afeef pleaded Nasheed to change his mind on becoming the speaker to prevent the party being split into two factions.
After initially turning down the request, the 51 year old Nasheed yielded which resulted in raucous applause. Before accepting, Nasheed took a brief moment to phone a "close friend".
For the first time in the archipelago's history, Nasheed will become the first former president to serve as speaker when the new parliament is sworn in on Tuesday evening.
President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih and former president Mohamed Nasheed - Photo: Majlis
