COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, The Washington Post, July 24, 2017 — The president of Maldives ordered the military to lock down parliament on Monday in a bid to prevent lawmakers from taking part in a vote to impeach the speaker, the main opposition party said, leading to clashes after opposition lawmakers stormed the ­compound.

Members of the armed forces padlocked the gates of parliament on orders from President Yameen Abdul Gayoom, and lawmakers “were forcibly prevented from entering the parliamentary compound,” the Maldivian Democratic Party said.

Some opposition lawmakers broke through the barrier, but they were thrown out by the military and police, who used pepper spray on them, said party spokesman Hamid Abdul ­Ghafoor.

In a statement, the opposition called Gayoom’s action “desperate, illegal and unconstitutional.”

Police said the government restricted access to the parliament building as the session was canceled and that the Maldives National Defense Force asked police to intervene in “clearing out individuals who forcefully entered the parliament building.”

In a statement, police also said they are investigating the obstruction of police duty by the opposition lawmakers who broke into the restricted area.

A no-confidence motion against Speaker Abdulla Maseeh Mohamed, a Gayoom loyalist, was scheduled to be taken up Monday. The opposition said the motion has the support of 45 lawmakers in the 85-member house.

However, uncertainty arose when the election commission announced last week that four loyalist members who supported the motion had lost their seats because they had left the ruling party.

The motion was considered a severe blow to Gayoom, whose control over parliament was threatened by a new understanding between Maldives’s former strongman, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, and its first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed. The Maldivian Democratic Party routed Yameen Abdul Gayoom’s party in local council elections earlier this year.

A similar opposition bid to oust the speaker was thwarted in March when the government defeated it by 48 votes, with none opposing. At the time, opposition lawmakers were either evicted or walked out from the vote after a dispute over problems with the electronic voting system.

The plan by the opposition coalition to wrest the parliamentary majority was aimed at reforming the judiciary, elections commission and other bodies perceived as being partial toward Gayoom.

In March, Nasheed and Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled the country from 1978 to 2008, and two other parties signed an agreement to form an opposition alliance.

Gayoom runs a rival faction within the Progressive Party of Maldives, which is led by the current president, his half brother.