President Muizzu to be impeached soon
President of Maldives Mohamed Muizzu, took oath on 17 Nov 2023 and in of his first actions, formally requested India to withdraw its military personnel from his country, saying the Maldivian people have given him a “strong mandate” to make this request to New Delhi. He is regarded as a totally Pro China leader.
Thereafter he chose to visit China for his maiden outing as the President, thereby giving a cold shoulder to India. Thereafter came the famous spats of his ministers with Indian neitzens over Lakshadweep tourism.
Next Muizzu supported candidate for Mayor ship of Male lost badly to the Opposition candidate in Jan24 elections.
Now Maldives is witnessing chaos as the Opposition threatens to impeach President Mohamed Muizzu for insulting India in general and PM Modi in particular . The Maldives’ coalition government including Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) and People’s National Congress (PNC) though have said that they would not allow efforts to remove Muizzu to proceed through the Parliament.
The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), which though in opposition, holds a majority in Parliament. They are planning to submit a motion to impeach Mohamed Muizzu, according to media reports.
“We will not allow them any opportunities to go ahead with this. They will have to kill us all first before they can even think of removing the President from office,” said PPM Parliamentary Group (PG) leader MP Ahmed Saleem who is MP from Eydhafushi constituency.
The Maldives parliament saw unprecedented clashes which broke out in Parliament on Sunday between pro-government MPs and opposition lawmakers over differences over the approval of four members of the pro-China President’s cabinet.
Further, the Parliament approved only one of the four members of pro-China President Mohamed Muizzu’s cabinet against whom the main opposition MDP has issued a three-line red whip.
After the MDP and The Democrats’ parliamentary group decided to withhold parliamentary approval for four members of the Presidential cabinet ahead of the voting, the pro-government MPs from the PPM/PNC coalition initiated a protest, obstructing the parliamentary sitting.
The decision to submit an impeachment motion was taken unanimously in the Maldives parliamentary group meeting of the MDP held on Monday. Notably, a minimum of 53 votes are required within parliament to remove a sitting president.
The Parliament, which has 87 members, had recently amended its standing orders to make it easier to submit an impeachment motion. The MDP and Democrats, together, have 56 MPs between them; 43 MPs from MDP, and 13 from Democrats.
The gathering of signatures for an impeachment motion against the President Muizzu comes a day after the PPM-PNC coalition, with the endorsement of 23 lawmakers, submitted no-confidence motions against Speaker Mohamed Aslam and deputy speaker Ahmed Saleem – both from MDP.
The Parliamentary elections are due in mid-March2024.
