President swears in TSC members without Opposition Leader

-says appointments could not be delayed

-WIN flays move

President Irfaan Ali yesterday swore in seven members of the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) despite a constitutional requirement for the Opposition Leader to be consulted on three of them.

The constitutionality of the three appointments will likely now be called into question.

The President later told the Department of Public Information (DPI) that the appointments could not be delayed. DPI reported the President as saying that while Article 207 (2) (d) of the constitution caters for meaningful consultations with the Opposition Leader the absence of one does not mean that constitutional bodies should remain inactive.

There is no Opposition Leader at the moment as the Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir has not convened a meeting of opposition MPs for the election of an Opposition Leader who it is expected will be We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) Leader Azruddin Mohamed who is facing extradition to the US on an 11-count indictment. Even though the 13th parliament had its first meeting on November 3rd, Nadir has not summoned what is a perfunctory meeting for the election of the Opposi-tion Leader. Observers have posited that the Speaker and the government are at one that the Leader of the Opposition should not be Mohamed and are biding their time for court proceedings to lead to his extradition to the United States.  Despite the fact that Nadir was elected on the strength of the PPP/C government’s 36 MPs in parliament, neither the government nor the PPP has called on him to convene the meeting for the election of the Opposition Leader.