Parliament sitting cancelled for lack of quorum

Deputy Speaker Ahmed Nazim cancelled today’s sitting of parliament after 40 minutes stating that MPs “deliberately” left the chamber to force a loss of quorum.

After ringing the quorum bell and waiting five minutes when the number of MPs in attendance fell below the 20 needed for a quorum, Nazim said quorum was lost because MPs intentionally left the chamber.

“Since MPs do not want the sitting to go ahead I have decided to end today’s sitting now,” he announced at 9.42am.

Today’s sitting was called off shortly before preliminary debate was due to commence on a resolution proposed by Jumhooree Party MP Ahmed Moosa regarding the leasing of uninhabited islands in Lhaviyani atoll.

Prior to the presentation of the resolution by the Kurendhoo MP, Education Minister Shifa Mohamed answered queries from MPs for thirty minutes during the Minister’s Question Time, usually the first order of business for parliament sittings.

Since the beginning of the final session of the year in October, parliament was deadlocked for three weeks over a dispute concerning the right of convicted MP Ismail Abdul Hameed to attend sittings until the Supreme Court ruled on his appeal of the Criminal Court verdict.

While the past three sittings were adjourned before time due to loss of quorum after the 12.30 break, a total of 11 sittings out of the 18 held so far were disrupted and cancelled for lack of quroum, with some sittings lasting less than two hours.

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