The Parliament’s General Committee has approved to change the seating arrangement of the parliament floor such that members belonging to the same political party can be seated together.
The committee studied seating arrangements in the parliaments of 45 countries which has a presidential governance system. According to the study, most countries arrange the seats in a way that members belonging to the same party are seated together.
While the general committee is comprised of eight members, all of whom are from main-ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), some members of the committee were in favour of changing the seat arrangements according to parties. The remaining members proposed changing the seating arrangement for constituencies Ha. to Seenu. Even with the difference in opinion, the decision to seat party members together was approved with seven out of the eight members of the commission in its favour.
The committee’s chair, and Henveiru North constituency MP, Hassan Latheef said the report on the committee’s decision has been forwarded to the parliament floor. If the parliament approves the change in seating arrangement, the order of the seats will be decided by the respective parliamentary group, said Hassan Latheef.
