COLOMBO: Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom Thursday named close aide Abdullah Shahid as his new foreign minister after the incumbent resigned over a row with lawmakers about reforms, his office said.

Shahid has served as deputy foreign minister and worked closely with Gayoom as a minister of state in the president’s office. The previous foreign minister, Ahmed Shaheed, quit Tuesday ahead of a no-trust vote against him in the national parliament, which he had accused of slowing down political reform in the Indian Ocean atoll nation.

Shaheed was the third cabinet minister to resign this month over the proposed reforms. Gayoom also named lawyer Mohamed Muiz Adnan as his new justice minister, while Rilwan Shareef was appointed minister of state for finance and treasury during a ceremony in the capital Male. Gayoom, who has ruled the Maldives since 1978, won an overwhelming majority in Saturday’s referendum in support of a US-style executive presidency for the Maldives.

Under the current Maldivian system, Gayoom appoints the members of his cabinet and they answer directly to him. Home to around 300,000 Muslims, the Maldives is a cluster of 1,192 tiny coral islands scattered some 850 kilometres across the equator.


(Courtesy: AFP)