State Islamic Minister dismisses party’s demand he resign

“You will know very well that I did not accept this position with the consent or with an approval of the consultation council, and therefore I do believe that there is a policy that allows the council to ask me to resign,” State Minister for Islamic Affairs Sheikh Hussain told the current President of the Adhaalath Sheikh Imran Abdulla, in a letter he send yesterday in response to the one demanding his resignation.

The Adhaalath Party decided this week to break off its coalition agreement with the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), after the party’s consultation council voted 32 to 2 to approve a resolution to leave the government.

In the letter Sheikh Hussein said that normally when a coalition agreement is terminated, the President withdraws the positions shared with the party, and President himself would ask the members of that political party to resign from their positions.

“Every citizen has a national responsibility, and the only time he should stop fulfilling those responsibilities are when they are inconsistent with the principles of Islam,” he told the Adhaalath Party president in the letter.

He said that the greatest responsibility of a citizen was to serve the nation and to carry on the duties the he was assigned, adding that the work he was doing “fulfills both a religious and national duty.”

Following in the footsteps of now-opposition Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP) and the Jumhooree Party (JP), Adhaalath is the third major party of the ‘Watan Edhey’ coalition – formed to rally against former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in the second round run-off of the 2008 presidential election – to leave the MDP-led coalition.

Sheikh Imran last night told Villa TV (VTV) that he had asked Islamic Minister Dr Abdul Majeed Abdul Bari and the State Islamic Minister to resign following the party’s split with the government.

Meanwhile, MDP Chairperson and MP ‘Reeko’ Moosa Manik said the MDP regrets the Adhaalath Party’s decision to leave “like a husband regrets for a while when a stubborn wife leaves him.”

Islamic Minister Dr Bari has not said anything on the matter. The media today reported that he had departed to Haa Alifu Atoll with the President.