Pro-government MPs do not trust their own: Qasim Ibrahim
Resorting to roll call vote shows lack of trust within the ruling coalition's parliamentary groups
MP Qasim Ibrahim outside the parliamentary session on Monday, 27th March 2017
The manner in which the no-confidence motion against parliament speaker Abdulla Maseeh was voted on is indicative of the ruling coalition’s lack of trust in its own members, said Jumhooree Party leader Qasim Ibrahim.
MP Ibrahim, who had once served as parliament speaker himself, said at a party gathering at Kunooz, JP’s primary assembly site, roll call votes are not the norm in parliament, and in fact has been unlawful since the establishing of an electronic voting system.
He highlighted that a roll call vote has not been taken for the past decade.
The representative of his native island Maamigili further said that bringing this lack of trust into public light is a great achievement.
“There have been no-confidence votes against ministers, auditor generals, and chief justices and they have always been taken through this electronic system” MP Ibrahim said “What happened [on Monday]? The public does not need me to spell it out for them, they can see it clearly, they can see that the government does not trust MPs aligned with them to uphold their values”.
Further, he expressed that parliament speaker Maseeh surviving the motion against him is a hindrance to attaining justice and rights of freedom for the people – a fight, MP Ibrahim said, was ongoing.
