As the eyes of the world are on France following the no-confidence vote that toppled the short-lived government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier on December 4, votes of no-confidence are also causing havoc in Pacific parliaments.
On December 9, the Tongan prime minister, Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni, resigned ahead of a vote of no confidence while the Solomon Islands has one pending.
In late November, there was another attempt to bring a vote of no confidence against James Marape’s government in Papua New Guinea. Marape faced his first vote of no-confidence in 2024 after deadly riots erupted in Port Moresby and other cities in January. To put off the vote, Marape suspended parliament until mid-May, by which time he had secured the requisite numbers to retain power. Yet other votes of no confidence followed for Marape, leading to what one commentator described as “a relentless campaign of opposition-led no confidence votes this year seeking to topple” him, as outlined further below.
In Vanuatu, when the prime minister and president both faced votes of no confidence, they instead dissolved parliament on November 19 and called snap elections to be held on January 14, 2025.
These are just the most recent Pacific activations of the mechanism of a vote of no confidence. As most Pacific parliaments are formed out of the British Westminster system, the vote of no confidence is a mechanism by which an opposition party can test a government’s control of its parliament, bring leaders to account, and, if the numbers are not in the government’s favor, overthrow them.
In February 2024, there was speculation in Fiji that a snap election was going to be called, though Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka noted that this could only occur at the time after a successful vote of no confidence, demonstrating another of its functions. (This did not eventuate.)
The events of December 4, 2024 in Paris – the first time in 60 years such a motion was successful in the French legislature – have made plain that political systems derived from France also have this mechanism, though it has also been used only on rare occasions in New Caledonia and French Polynesia.
Elsewhere in the Pacific, the vote of no confidence has been weaponized and used to great effect. As a vote of no confidence is about having, or not having, the majority of numbers in a governing body, it has become an increasingly disruptive tool in the Pacific. Razor thin majorities, an unwieldy number of parties, and the fluidity of MPs’ allegiance to parties and the government of the day (Vanuatu being the leading example of this dynamic at work) makes the vote of no confidence a more effective and frequently deployed tactic. Recent instances of votes of no confidence have also demonstrated the fragility of democratic processes that allow for brazen foreign influence.
In late 2021, then-Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare faced a vote of no confidence following the deadly November riots in Honiara. To ensure this vote was defeated, Sogavare was accused of using money from the Chinese-financed National Development Fund to pay about $30,000 to 39 lawmakers around the time of the vote. Unsurprisingly, the vote of no confidence failed: 15 MPs voted in favor of it, 32 against, and two abstained.
Sogavare has served four terms as the Solomon Islands prime minister and is no stranger to votes of no confidence. In 2007 he was deposed by one, though he stayed on as a caretaker prime minister until elections. Ten years later, when serving his third prime ministerial term, he was again ousted in a vote of no confidence when 17 members of his own party voted against him in November 2017.
In February 2023, Sogavare’s government “openly orchestrated” a vote of no confidence to oust his strident opponent, Daniel Suidani, the then-premier of the country’s most populous province, Malaita. Suidani, who remained loyal to Taiwan after Sogavare suddenly switched his nation’s allegiance to the PRC in September 2019, was blocking PRC advances in his province. He was voted out following a dramatic scene where he and his supporters walked off the parliamentary floor boycotting the vote, meaning that the no confidence vote passed unanimously. Suidani claimed payments were made to secure this outcome.
In the April 2024 provincial elections, Suidani was re-elected but in October 2024 he was arrested on three charges relating to organizing an unlawful assembly in 2021 in the Malaitian provincial capital of Auki before the Honiara riots that grabbed world headlines. The no confidence vote in 2023 did not end Suidani’s political career, but it remains to be seen if court proceedings will be weaponized to have this effect.
So why is Sogavare’s successor as prime minister, Jerimiah Manele, now facing a vote of no confidence? (Sogavare serves as his finance minister, having removed himself from contention to become prime minister after the April elections due his unpopularity). Manele has served as prime minister for only eight months, but according to the MP bringing the motion, Gordon Darcy Lilo, there are several reasons. Lilo has said that Manele is “not in control of his ministers,” and presides over a “worsening state of the economy” that he is doing little to address. He also accused the Manele administration of rampant cronyism. Lilo expressed concern over the recent exposé of an off-shore business in Singapore set up by the president of Manele’s OUR Party, with implications for its leadership. Few would be surprised that if this vote of no confidence is successful, Sogavare, who has been waiting in the wings, will return to the prime ministership, again.
The use of the vote of no confidence mechanism against Manele so soon after national elections in April, is not a situation that could occur in Papua New Guinea. Section 145 of the Papua New Guinea constitution prohibits a vote of no confidence “during the period of eighteen months commencing on the date of the appointment of the Prime Minister.” While this provision might give a prime minister some time, once that period has passed the “no confidence season” in PNG’s parliament begins, according to analyst Henry Ivarature.
Marape’s government faced six attempts at votes of no confidence in 2024 (some of these attempts were foiled on administrative grounds before they became votes on the parliamentary floor). When Marape addressed parliament on the issue in September 2024, following another failed vote of no confidence, he said these votes have “become the recurring theme of every government since Independence. I have pointed out these unnecessary disruptions a number of times in the past, and I point them out again today.”
Marape mapped out the impacts of votes of no confidence on “nearly all government formations” since 1975. He noted that the steady beat of votes of no confidence have meant that, on average, governments last two years, which is too little time to have a “real, meaningful impact on development.”
These votes have “squandered months to politicking – precious time which we could have invested in bettering the lives of our people.” As a result of all this disruption and lost time, Marape is pushing to further restrict the use of this mechanism by extending the grace periods when the motion cannot be made. In one of the great ironies of Marape’s current campaign against the vote of no confidence, he became prime minister in 2019 through a successful vote of no confidence against then-Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.
Tonga’s scheduled vote of no confidence on December 9 vote against Prime Minister Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni was to be the second motion in as many months. Justifying the September vote of no confidence, 46 allegations were made against the prime minister. A central issue revolved around the national airline, Lulutai Airlines, with Tonga’s King Tupou VI publicly criticizing the government’s handling of the state-owned enterprise.
Just before the December 9 vote, Hu’akavameiliku resigned, indicating that the numbers were not in his favor. In recent months, a power struggle has played out between the Tongan king and the now former prime minister. It is part of the ongoing evolution of Tonga’s relatively recent shift from monarchial rule to a more democratic political system from 2010.
The vote of no confidence that took place in Paris on December 4 might seem remote to all these machinations in Pacific parliaments. Yet for for New Caledonia and French Polynesia, the fall of the Barnier government and the prospect of ongoing French political, and budgetary, issues has raised concerns in these French overseas territories.
This is particularly the case for New Caledonia, which is digging out of the May 2024 riots in Noumea. The financial measures set in motion by the Barnier government to aid in recovery are now in jeopardy. As Barnier’s Minister for Overseas Territories François-Noël Buffet said before the recent no confidence vote, “our overseas territories will pay the hard price. This will pause many crucial measures with a direct impact on their economic, social, and environmental development.”
Some predictions of what the fallout of this “hard price” might involve, like “hunger riots” in New Caledonia, are dire. In French Polynesia, there are also fears about programs stalled or cancelled as well as the economic fallout from the uncertain future of budgetary measures.
What is certain and demonstrated is that votes of no confidence are having considerable impacts on political landscapes in many locations throughout the Pacific, and the societies they govern.