Supreme Court must decide on parliamentarians losing seats, says ex-president Nasheed

The Supreme Court needs to make a definitive decision on the parliamentary seats of lawmakers that the Elections Commission says have lost their seats, said former President Mohamed Nasheed.

Nasheed, also the leader of the largest opposition party in the country, said this in a post on his official Twitter account.

“[The] Supreme Court has, in its hands, a matter that relates to the representation of thousands of citizens, not following through with it is negligence” Nasheed said in the Tweet, typed out in Dhivehi.

The Elections Commission has decided that a number of lawmakers, all aligned with the opposition, had lost their seats in accordance to a Supreme Court decision on floor-crossing.

A case asking the court to interpret laws on political parties and the allegiances elected representatives have to them, was filed by the Attorney General’s Office.

The opposition has alleged that this is a move to sabotage the majority they recently accumulated in parliament and a motion of no-confidence that they were about to submit.

The issue of these 12 parliamentarians losing their seat has been filed again with the Supreme Court and legal representatives of these members have repeatedly asked the apex court to follow through with a decision.

Former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, an opposition partner of Nasheed’s, also said that the Supreme Court has an obligation to respond to such requests.