President Nasheed today expressed disappointment and concerns over leak of the nominee from him to the Commission of National Inquiry established to look into the events that led to the forceful resignation of President Nasheed on February 7 after a military and police backed coup.

After several months of public and international pressure, Dr. Waheed’s administration agreed to change the composition of the Inquiry Commission as per the advise of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) on 16 April to make the Commission impartial and independent. On the last day of the deadline, the Government agreed to include a representative from President Nasheed and to include a Commonwealth appointed judge to the Commission and significant changes were brought to the Terms of Reference of the Commission.

All the names proposed by President Nasheed were rejected by the administration while setting criteria for the nominees. The tenth nominee was rejected by the administration while President Nasheed is attending the Executive Meeting of International Democrat Union (IDU) in New Zealand.

‘The understanding between the Commonwealth’s special envoy and President Nasheed was that the names proposed by him would not be revealed without discussing with him. However, today, the administration had publicly announced one of the nominees without consulting President Nasheed and this is unacceptable’ said Hamid Abdul Ghafoor, MDP spokesperson for international affairs.

“President has expressed disappointment and concern over the leak to the Commonwealth and we certainly hope such unprofessionalism would not continue in this process’ Ghafoor added.