Speaker Abdul Raheem insists he remains ‘free’, not being controlled in any way

Speaker Abdul Raheem Abdulla – the chairman of the ruling People’s National Congress (PNC) - insisted on Monday that he continues to operate “freely” in his role as the head of the legislative assembly and is not being controlled in any away.

Abdul Raheem made the remarks in response to comments made by South Galolhu MP Meekail Ahmed Naseem during a debate on a report presented by the Public Accounts Committee regarding the government’s two-year fiscal reform agenda.

Joining Monday morning’s debate, Meekail, a politician from the main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), said that he was sympathetic to Abdul Raheem’s situation.

“…Using a Speaker of the People’s Majlis who has surrendered his gun…” said Meekail, before he was interrupted by Abdul Raheem.

Abdul Raheem said that Meekail was unaware of his “situation.”

“Honorable parliamentary member, you would not be aware of my health situation or life or any other situation. Therefore, you do not have a chance to comment on it. I am operating freely in this seat. It was the honorable members of this Parliament that elected me to this seat. I am not being restricted from doing anything here,” he said.

“Therefore, I repeatedly urge the honorable South Galolhu representative against using your mic to mislead the people.”

Meekail, who had an emergency motion he submitted over legislature to downsize the Supreme Court bench rejected earlier in the morning, responded that he will continue have the voice of the South Galolhu constituency heard for as long as the mic works.

He accused the government of attempting to subvert the powers of the Parliament, and said that the people were well aware of Abdul Raheem’s current “predicament.”

“They are well aware of what was done to your son, what was done to your family members, and the political appointees hired through you…” said Meekail, before Abdul Raheem cut off his mic and asked him again to stick to commenting on the committee’s report.

Abdul Raheem's son, Ibrahim Faisal had been among the original appointees to President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu’s cabinet on November 17, 2023. He was dismissed from his role as tourism minister on January 28, for reasons that the President’s Office has not disclose.

In an interview to a local media outlet that day, Abdul Raheem, who had been on vacation in Malaysia at the time, publicly admitted to frayed ties between him and President Muizzu for the first time, commenting that “obviously this wouldn’t have happened if we were on good terms.”

But he made no further public comment regarding the decision after that, but was visibly absent from many of PNC’s events – up until his call on President Muizzu at his office last week - which had marked the first face-to-face meeting between the top leaders of the PNC since Faisal's dismissal.

Faisal’s dismissal followed monthslong rumors of friction between the President Muizzu and Abdul Raheem – once seen as his most powerful ally, having played an instrumental role in his successful 2023 presidential campaign.

Less than a week after Faisal’s dismissal, Mohamed Wajeeh, the father of Abdul Raheem’s son-in-law and legal affairs minister at the President’s Office Hisham Wajeeh, was dismissed from his role as the managing director of Maldives Ports Limited (MPL).

Abdul Raheem previously described his efforts to get President Muizzu to office as “the hardest but most successful” work of his long political career.

After President Muizzu took office in November 2023, he appointed Abdul Raheem as his special advisor. But Abdul Raheem later resigned from the role to successfully contest the 2024 parliamentary elections, in which the PNC won a supermajority of seats in the Parliament. It had been President Muizzu himself who recommended him to the role of Speaker of Parliament.