Aslam: Nasheed has personal grudge against MDP, he’s lying

MDP’s parliamentary group leader Mohamed Aslam has accused Speaker Mohamed Nasheed, the party’s former leader, of getting increasingly personal against MDP, saying that he has been telling practically “nothing but lies” recently.

Opening Tuesday’s sitting, Nasheed said the MDP, which holds a majority at the Parliament, has yet to send their nominations for permanent committees, resulting in a stall in the re-composition of the committees.

Aslam, who represents the North Hithadhoo constituency, told Sun that it wasn’t just the MDP that have to submit nominations.

He said that Nasheed made the comment well aware of the fact.

Aslam accused Nasheed of singling out MDP because he holds a personal grudge against the party and its leadership.

“We have found Speaker Nasheed has not been completely truthful in recent times,” he said.

Aslam, who ran as President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s running mate in his recent failed re-election bid, said that other parties have also yet to submit nominations.

‘I believe he singled out MDP because he harbors a personal grudge against MDP and MDP’s leadership,” he said.

Aslam said the MDP will share the names with the Parliament later Tuesday. He said the party had yet to submit the nominations because they want to discuss it with all of the party’s lawmakers.

MDP currently has 56 MPs.

Aslam’s criticism of Nasheed comes with the former Maldivian president himself also increasingly critical of MDP since he left the party in June. Nasheed had left the MDP after relations between him and President Solih deteriorated after he lost the party’s presidential ticket to him. The differences between Nasheed and President Solih also created a rift within the MDP, which eventually led to members loyal to Nasheed leaving the party to form a new one – the Democrats.

Also on Tuesday, Nasheed said that the MDP had agreed to support the referendum the Democrats is pushing to change the system of government, if it agreed to refrain from joining PPM in the presidential election runoff. He said the MDP was “no longer a party that is true to its word.” MDP’s chairperson Fayyaz Ismail has denied any such agreement between MDP and Democrats