Malé, Maldives – Speaker of Parliament and former president, Mohamed Nasheed has put forward a motion for a referendum for parliamentary system in Maldives.
The decree submitted by Speaker Nasheed to the Maldivian Democratic Party’s (MDP) upcoming congress on August 19 – 21, 2022, read that it has become difficult for a single party to win a presidential election and run the government with absolute rule due to the presidential election and election processes under the current constitution.
Speaker Nasheed further added that with the current presidential system, MDP has to form coalitions to win the elections causing the ruling of the nation getting muddled up and the party’s manifesto not being executed during the term. He further added that the current coalition government is causing the grass root members to distrust the party.
The decree also proposes to declare the responsibilities of the prime minister and the presidents authority as the highest authority of the state. The decree further adds to decide how parliamentarians will represent their constituencies and create a ”national list“ and how members will be allocated to it based on the number of votes received by each party in the parliamentary elections.
In addition to these, it has also been proposed to cap the number of parliament members to 87 and the cabinet to be formed from the parliamentarians elected. Capping the Supreme Court bench at 5 justices has also been proposed in the decree by Speaker Nasheed.
Speaker Nasheed has on multiple occasions pushed to convert the current presidential system to a parliamentary system. Nasheed has signed a petition of over 109,000 signatures previously, urging President Solih to convert the governance system to parliamentary. President Solih has not taken any action regarding the matter.
Speaking on the matter, President Solih had previously stated that this was a decision which needs to be made by the general public and that he did not want to focus on anything other than completing a successful 5 year term in office. He also added that people had voted to have a presidential system back in 2007 when the new constitution was being made and that people had said no to a parliamentary system.
