COLOMBO: The Maldives was without an effective government Wednesday, after the cabinet resigned en masse amid a power struggle between President Mohamed Nasheed and the opposition-controlled parliament.

The 13-member cabinet quit on Tuesday, saying the majlis, or parliament, was blocking all its efforts to govern the Indian Ocean atoll nation and undermining the authority of the executive.

Officials said Nasheed, who came to power in 2008 as the Maldives` first democratically elected leader, would hold off on re-naming a cabinet.

"There is no point in having a new cabinet unless the crisis in parliament is resolved. What we now have is a political deadlock," a senior official close to Nasheed told AFP by telephone.

Nasheed`s Maldivian Democratic Party enjoys the support of 32 lawmakers in the 77-member national assembly, while the opposition Maldivian People`s Party (DRP) has the backing of more than 40 MPs.

Nasheed, 43, said Tuesday that the opposition was using its parliamentary superiority to bring the process of government to a standstill, by blocking numerous policy initiatives including an ambitious privatisation programme.

"The majlis is preventing cabinet ministers from performing their legal obligations," he said in a statement on Tuesday. "Majlis members are behaving against the spirit and the letter of the constitution."

Attorney General Husnu Suood said it was becoming difficult to govern the archipelago of 330,000 Sunni Muslims.

"Every passing week, there is another attempt by opposition MPs to wrestle more control from the executive," Suood said.

The president has no power to dissolve parliament and the opposition lacks the required two-thirds majority to impeach Nasheed, who is also commander in chief of the armed forces.

Under the Maldives` presidential system of government, the president handpicks his cabinet and each nomination must be approved by parliament which can later seek to remove a minister through a no-confidence vote.

The opposition had planned to bring such a motion against the education minister on Wednesday, but the cabinet resignation pre-empted the move.

The DRP insists that it is behaving as a responsible opposition.

"We have the numbers in parliament to block what is not good for the country," party spokesman Mohamed Shareef told AFP by telephone from the Maldivian capital Male.

BDST: 11:55 HRS, June 30, 2010