Yameen will not win a single seat if by-elections are held, says ‘dismissed’ lawmaker

President Abdulla Yameen and pro-government candidates cannot secure a single seat if by-elections are to be held for vacant seats in parliament, says lawmaker Saud Hussain.

MP Saud, whom the Elections Commission dismissed for floor-crossing, also said that a candidate representing the current government cannot win a seat for any constituency in the country.

The parliamentarian further expressed, at an interview with RaajjeTV on Sunday, his conviction that even members of the ruling party no longer support the government.

Referring to his own consituents, Saud said not even 200 of them would cast votes for such a candidate and that they remain fiercely loyal to him.

In this regard, Saud spoke about a recent ruling party rally held in Vilingilli, which is also the island he is native to, where a state employee had taken to the podium to threaten the lawmaker with death.

Saud said that not many people had attended the rally, and most of those that did had saught his permission first.

Youth Ministry coordinator Ibrahim Rasheed was responding to MP Saud’s comments about the allied opposition parties emerging victorious in upcoming ballots, when he said he would ‘cut’ the lawmaker into ‘pieces’.

Saud was elected on a ticket from the ruling party, the Progressive Party of Maldives, which has been split into two factions since 2016.

The lawmaker defected in 2017, joining the party’s leader Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in a coalition with the Maldivian Democratic Party, the Jumhooree Party, and Adhaalath Party.

Saud was deemed to have lost his seat in parliament after a Supreme Court issued a ruling on floor-crossing, which stated that a law on defection must be brought into effect first.

While Saud and 12 other lawmakers were dismissed by the Elections Commission in mid-2017, Maldives only ratified such a law in March this year. The apex court has also ruled to reinstates said lawmakers.