The standing committees of the Maldives Parliament have been formed after werks of inactivity on the matter.
The committees were formed after rejecting the opposition's recommendation to prevent the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) from having a majority composition in them.
Parliament’s standing committees required changes after 13 MPs belonging to the ruling party resigned earlier in May.
After two months of delays and disputes among the parties, followed by a parliamentary recess, the composition of the standing committees has been reformed.
An extraordinary sitting was scheduled for Monday, July 10, following a request from the ruling party to resolve the matter of committee reformation. During the sitting, Maduvvari MP Adam Shareef from the People's National Congress (PNC) and Central-Henveiru MP Ali Azim, a key figure in The Democrats, a newly formed political party, proposed several amendments to the reformation of the standing committees.
Both MPs proposed amendments to prevent MDP from having a majority in the 17 standing committees of the parliament, including the National Security Committee. They said that this decision was crucial to enhance the government's accountability, as it would prevent potential hindrances that may arise if the ruling party controlled the committees. Additionally, they suggested that the chair positions of the committees should also be disallowed for MDP.
Despite the suggestions made by the MPs, the proposed amendments to the composition of the standing committees failed to approve with only 13 votes in favor from the required minimum of 21 votes while 33 members voted against the amendments.
The report submitted for the reformation of the committees included two key suggestions, both of which called for the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) to retain the majority in the committees.
The first proposition of the report was submitted during Monday's sitting and received 35 votes in favor, surpassing the minimum requirement of 25 votes. However, there were 14 members who voted against the proposition.
From the voting during Monday's sitting, MDP secured 113 out of the 183 slots in the 17 standing committees. This is in line with their representation of 54 MPs in the parliament. The Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) received 11 slots, while both the People's National Congress (PNC) and Maldives National Party (MNP) received five slots each.
Vilufushi MP Hassan Afeef, who chaired the sitting, requested the members to submit their names for the committees to the parliament secretariat before 09:00 p.m. on Monday evening. He further said that the Parliament Speaker would designate slots for independent members based on their preferences or suggestions.
Following the reformation of the standing committees, the no-confidence motions against Parliament Speaker Mohamed Nasheed and Deputy Speaker Eva Abdulla, which had been limbo for a long time, will now proceed without further delay.
Both no-confidence motions against Speakers have been on hold as there was no allocated time for their debate and defense. The parliament regulation states that the debates on no-confidence motions should be tabled by the parliament's general committee, which was inactive during the period of standing committee reformation.
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