After the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) lost its majority on the Government Oversight Committee of the parliament, the committee has subsequently scheduled giving consent for the current cabinet on the agenda for Saturday's sitting on December 30, 2023.
The committee, which previously enjoyed MDP majority, had delayed the cabinet's consent. The issue remained in pending when the parliament's third session concluded and went into recess.
With the third session extended on three separate occasions, the parliament had concluded its final sitting last Thursday without addressing the cabinet consent issue. After conclusion of Thursday's sitting, parliament concluded the final session for the year and went into recess until February 2024.
The government submitted for parliamentary consent of its 22 ministers on November 20, 2023. The Government Oversight Committee assessed the ministers, and forwarded to the parliament for passing where it was reverted back to the committee owing to multiple points of orders by MDP members of the legislative body.
After it was rejected at the parliament floor, the relevant committee did not convene another meeting on the issue.
Due to multiple delays on the matter, led by MDP, which holds parliament majority, the party has faced allegations of attempting to impede the current government.
On Thursday evening, December 28, several MDP parliamentary members signed with the ruling People's National Congress (PNC). Following this, MDP lost its majority in the Government Oversight Committee, leading to the pending consent matter being put on the agenda for Saturday morning's committee meeting at 11:00 a.m.
Previously, seven of the 12 committee members were from MDP. But after South-Maafannu MP from MDP, Adam Ali signed up with PNC on Thursday, the committee would now have five MDP members excluding its chair and West-Maafannu MP Mohamed Falaah.
Besides Mp Adam Ali, the committee consists of three members from the PPM/PNC coalition, two MPs from The Democrats and one member from Maldives National Party (MNP).
Earlier, Parliament Speaker Mohamed Aslam suggested that consent for the cabinet can be passed at an extraordinary sitting outside the parliamentary session.
Although The Democrats were the parliament's minority party with 13 members until now, PNC has become the new minority with 15 members, including two of the party's MPs in the parliament and the 13 MDP members who signed for the party on Thursday evening.
In addition to this, PPM, the coalition partner of PNC, has two members in the parliament as well.
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