Parliament Speaker Abdulla Maseeh is representing Maldives in the 137^th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union held in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Maseeh was photographed by MP Ahmed Nihan, the leader of the ruling party’s parliamentary group, at the assembly’s inauguration on Saturday.

The assembly will go on until 18^th October with representatives of the national parliaments of 173 countries.

While Maseeh represents the Maldives in Russia, this week’s parliamentary sittings were conducted amid protests from the opposition, who had filed a 45-signature motion of no-confidence against him.

The opposition protested the omission of their motion from the parliament’s agenda, and denied Maseeh’s legitimacy as parliament speaker.