COLOMBO: Maldives opposition parties said Monday they would launch a fresh bid to seize control of parliament by impeaching the speaker, weeks after their first attempt failed when the president called in troops to evict lawmakers.
A coalition of opposition parties said it had submitted a no-confidence motion on Sunday with the support of 31 MPs — enough to force a vote in the 85-member majlis, or parliament.
But after the motion was submitted the government increased the number of signatures required for such a motion to 42, leaving it unclear whether a vote would go ahead.
The coalition, led by exiled opposition leader and former Maldives leader Mohamed Nasheed, is trying to undermine President Abdulla Yameen before elections next year.
It faces an uphill struggle, with all opposition leaders now in exile or in jail after a years-long crackdown on dissent under Yameen’s leadership.
The clampdown has raised fears over the country’s stability and dented its image as a tourist paradise
On Monday the coalition led by Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) accused the government of making “abrupt and arbitrary changes to the parliamentary standing orders, designed to derail the second no confidence motion submitted against the speaker.”
Last month’s motion ended in chaos when Yameen ordered troops to eject some lawmakers from parliament, leading the opposition to boycott the vote and prompting Washington to urge the Maldives to restore faith in democracy.
Nasheed has said that taking control of the legislature is crucial to ensuring a free and fair presidential election in 2018.
The government said the second impeachment bid was a “deliberate attack on the administration” and accused the opposition of trying to stoke political unrest.
The latest move comes days after Yameen locked up the last opposition leader still at liberty in the honeymoon island nation of just 340,000 people.
Qasim Ibrahim, who ran for president in 2013 and heads the Jumhooree Party, was one of four signatories of an opposition unity deal aimed at toppling the president.
Nasheed became the country’s first democratically elected president in 2008, but was narrowly defeated by Yameen in a controversial 2013 election run-off.
In 2015 he was sentenced to 13 years in prison on terrorism charges that were widely seen as politically motivated. He now lives in exile in Britain.
Maldives opposition in new bid to take control of parliament
Maldives opposition in new bid to take control of parliament
Brazilian ex-President Jair Bolsonaro undergoes double hernia surgery
- He was granted court permission to leave prison after federal police doctors confirmed that he needed the procedure
- The surgery in Brasilia is expected to last about four hours
SAO PAULO: Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is undergoing double hernia surgery on Thursday at a hospital in the country’s capital, his family said.
Bolsonaro, who has been hospitalized since Wednesday, has been serving a 27-year prison sentence since November for an attempted coup.
He was granted court permission to leave prison after federal police doctors confirmed that he needed the procedure. The surgery in Brasilia is expected to last about four hours, the DF Star hospital medical team said in a statement Wednesday.
Doctors say Bolsonaro’s double hernia causes him pain. The former leader, who was in power between 2019 and 2022, has gone through several other surgeries since he was stabbed in the abdomen during a campaign rally in 2018.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw Bolsonaro’s coup trial and sentenced him to prison, authorized the procedure, but denied the former president’s request for house arrest after he leaves the hospital.
Bolsonaro doesn’t have any contact with the few other inmates at the federal police headquarters in Brasilia, where he is held and where his 12-square-meter (around 130-square-foot) room has a bed, a private bathroom, air conditioning, a television and a desk, according to authorities.
He has free access to his doctors and lawyers, but other visitors must receive approval from the Supreme Court. On Wednesday, de Moraes authorized Bolsonaro’s sons to visit him while he’s hospitalized. His wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, is accompanying him.
Early Thursday, his eldest son, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, told reporters before the surgery that his father had written a letter confirming he had appointed him as his political party’s presidential candidate in next year’s election. Flávio Bolsonaro announced on Dec. 5 that he will challenge President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is seeking a fourth nonconsecutive term, as the candidate of Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party.
The senator read the letter to journalists, and his office released a reproduction of it to the media.
“He represents the continuation of the path of prosperity that I began well before becoming president, as I believe we must restore the responsibility of leading Brazil with justice, resolve and loyalty to the aspirations of the Brazilian people,” Bolsonaro said in the handwritten letter, dated Dec. 25.
The former president and several of his allies were convicted by a panel of Supreme Court justices for attempting to overthrow Brazil’s democratic system following his 2022 election defeat.
The plot included plans to kill Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and de Moraes. There was also a plan to encourage an insurrection in early 2023.
Bolsonaro was also convicted on charges that include leading an armed criminal organization and attempting the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law. He has denied any wrongdoing.
