No member of Jumhooree Party (JP) will vote for a candidate fielded by the opposition coalition, says Minister of Environment and Energy, Dr. Hussain Rasheed Hassan.

The Minister said this on Twitter in response to opposition People's National Congress (PNC) leader Abdul Raheem Abdulla, who said the ruling coalition has collapsed.

In his tweet, Minister Hussain denied the claim and said that he will always defend President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s government.

JP President and Minister of Tourism Ali Waheed has also said that he will never support a candidate fielded by the opposition coalition.

On Saturday, JP leader Qasim Ibrahim said the government coalition is still intact but that his party has decided to support parliamentary candidates of the Progressive Congress, which consists of jailed former President Abdulla Yameen’s Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM) and PNC.

Qasim said that the opposition coalition's 32 candidates have JP’s full support but that this decision was not part of any agreement made between them.