Waheed adds more Gayoom loyalists to Maldivian cabinet

Male, Mar 5 (PTI) Maldivian President Mohamed Waheed today picked up two more Gayoom-era officials to fill up the crucial cabinet berths of Foreign Affairs and Finance, even as the all-party talks to reconcile political differences and set out a future roadmap lay in shambles. Waheed appointed Abdul Samad Abdulla, Maldives' envoy to Bangladesh during Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's time as the new Foreign Minister, and gave the finance portfolio to Abdulla Jihad, who earlier held the ministry as well as the position of the Central Bank governor during Gayoom's regime in 2008. With the new appointments, former loyalists of the Gayoom regime now dominate Waheed's cabinet that also has the former dictator's daughter, Dhunya Maumoon as a State Minister for Foreign Affairs. Waheed had earlier appointed former Justice Minister Mohamed Jameel Ahmed, as the Home Minister, and Mohamed Nazim, a former military officer under Gayoom, as his Minister of Defence and National Security. He also chose Gayoom's spokesperson, Mohamed Hussain Shareef as his Minister for Human Resources, Youth and Sports and made Gayoom's lawyer, Azima Shakoor, as the Attorney General. The appointments came at time when differences are widening between the government supporters and those of ousted president Mohamed Nasheed, with the all party talks to take forward an India-brokered deal lying suspended. At the moment, major parties who are part of the talks have withdrawn their representatives after the Maldivian Democratic Party's lawmakers disrupted parliament and prevented the president from deliver his address last week. With the coordinator of the talks leaving the country on a private trip, the talks have been temporarily suspended, the Secretariat announced yesterday. MDP leaders meanwhile are threatening the government that they will paralyse its functioning unless the government gives a date for the presidential elections. Under an India-brokered deal, the Waheed government had agreed to hold an early election in line with Nasheed's demand. Nasheed told his supporters today that he would not allow the Majlis to function until a date for the presidential elections is finalised. PTI