No-Confidence Vote Is A Vital Safety ‘Valve’ For PNG – Political Scientist

Don
Wiseman, RNZ Pacific Senior
Journalist

Earlier this month, the Papua New Guinea
government amended
the country’s constitution to make it more difficult to
bring votes of no confidence in the government.

With
other grace periods – times when such votes cannot be
brought – it means a PNG government could face just a
12-month window for no confidence votes in a five-year
term.

Critics say
it undermines the nation’s democracy, that the votes are
a pressure valve that releases tension in the
country.

RNZ Pacific spoke with political scientist
Michael Kabuni, who is affiliated with both the Australian
National University and the University of PNG, about the
potential impacts of the changes.

(The transcript
has been edited for brevity and
clarity.)

Don Wiseman: Twenty or thirty
years ago in Papua New Guinea, governments didn’t last very
long. There were constant votes of no-confidence, and
administrations very rarely actually lasted thier term. In
fact, I think there was a period of about 30 years with no
government going the full term, but with the votes of
no-confidence, a convoluted process introduced about 20
years ago that seemed to change, and now the current
governments made it even
tighter.

Michael Kabuni:
When you look at a pattern where politics became a
bit stable – when we say stable politics, we mean the Prime
Minister is able to complete his term in parliament, even
though there is so much movement between the coalitions,
between political parties, and from government to
opposition. and opposition to government, that hasn’t
changed, except that the Prime Minister’s tenure has become
longer and is able to complete this term in parliament there
are several explanations for that. But the most important
one is increasing constituency development
funding.

When you look at the length of time the Prime
Minister serves in parliament, it correlates with the amount
of funds that are given out to members of parliament in the
form of constituency development funds, which is basically
spent at their discretion. So, that’s the main explanation
for stability.

Then there are others that has to do
with amendments to the constitutions. There was a amendment
in the 1990s to extend the grace period from original six
months to 12 months, and then from 12 to 18 months. This
grace period prevents a prime minister from being removed
through a vote of no confidence for 18 months after he is
elected. And that can be election following an appointment
of the Prime Minister following a general election or after
a vote of no confidence. If there is a successful vote of no
confidence, it replaces the incumbent, then that triggers 18
month grace periods.

What the current government has
done is to insert another 18 months, if the incumbent
defeats a vote of no confidence. So, you had 18 months after
the election of the prime minister, and now you have another
18 months if the prime minister successfully overcomes a
vote of no confidence.

You have about 60 months in the
five year parliamentary term. So, you take the first 18
months out of the 60 months, and then you take another 18
months if the prime minister successfully overcomes a vote
of no confidence, the window of vote of no confidence
diminishes drastically…

DW: To 12 months,
effectively, because if there is a voter no-confidence in
the final 12 months, it is automatically an
election.

MK: Yeah, so you
can add another 12 months to the 36 months, and you are left
with almost just a few months.

[The] vote of no
confidence is there to hold the government accountable. They
are basically reducing the accountability window, if you
like, and it is becoming at this stage James Marape is
almost secure. He might become the third prime minister to
complete his term, apart from Michael Somare and Peter
O’Neill – not because he is a effective prime minister, but
because he controls the funding, enough to buy political
support to amend the constitution and insulate himself from
vote of no confidence.

The opposition has one chance
to challenge the prime minister in a vote of no confidence,
and if they are unsuccessful, it will automatically trigger
a grace period of 18 months. If you count 18 months from
now, it basically runs into the last 12 months leading up to
the election.

This last 12 months, members of
parliament do not initiate a vote of no confidence in PNG
because it automatically leads to dissolution of parliament.
That isthe kind of situation we have right
now.

DW: We were saying that it was all about
bringing stability and so on, which I guess it is done, but
you might also argue that it has made the government
moribund, that it is too stable in a lot of
ways.

MK: Yes, and that has
a lot of implications. Papua New Guinea has about 800
languages and 1000 tribes. I spoke to some of the founding
fathers, some have passed on, and even the expatriates who
were here as a young kid and officers when PNG gained
independence. One of them said to me he was walking out of
this big oval when Australian flag was being lowered and
Papua New Guinea flag was being raised, and he said he
didn’t think Papua New Guinea would survive.

Papua New
Guinea had all the features that other African countries had
that had led to military coups and military taking over the
government. When you read the early writings, no one gave
Papua New Guinea a chance. It is surprising how it survived
for 50 years. One of the explanations for that is that
whenever there is a frustration building up, vote of no
confidence happens, and the prime minister is removed, and
it becomes this kind of a release valve for
frustration.

I observed this in the last decade or so,
when I became a student of political science. I was part of
student protests from the University of Papua New Guinea,
and whenever we would protest, and there is a frustration
building up, and then there is a vote of no confidence, or
the prime minister steps aside, whichever it is, there os a
change in behaviour.

There is this sense of release
and it is not necessarily because the guy that replaced the
incumbent is a good prime minister. It is just that they
have gotten rid of this guy that they did not like. Apart
from accountability, vote of no confidence has provided this
release in Papua New Guinea, and I think it is one of the
main reasons why Papua New Guinea actually remained a
democracy, and now the government is doing everything it can
to shut that valve.

I have heard Sir Julius Chan
speak, and he said, vote of no confidence was put there as a
release valve.

It is amazing how this mechanism was
building, not only as an accountability mechanism to remove
the prime minister, but understanding the society. So many
perspectives, so many tribes and languages, and interests,
that there to be a mechanism where this frustration is taken
out, but not through forceful means.

That is the other
side of the thing – when you have political stability in a
highly corrupt environment. There is a sense that the
government will become more corrupt because they are not
subject to change. They are not subject to accountability.
No one is holding them accountable. And again, this has
happened in the past. We had so many constitutional
amendments that a parliament could not stop because the
government had all the numbers, and these amendments were
only reversed by the Supreme Court.

So for the
government in Papua New Guinea, with stability becomes more
reckless and irresponsible. In that sense, political
stability in Papua New Guinea really does not help whichever
metrics you look at.

DW: Can we look at a
couple of aspects that have come up in what you have been
saying? Now, just to clarify, the prime minister uses these
discretionary funds, but he is only giving those to some of
the MPs, the ones who will back him, not to every MP. Is
that right?

MK: That’s been
the argument from the opposition MPs, that they are not
getting their share of the constituency development
funding.

It is used like a carrot and stick: reward
those members of parliament that are supporting the prime
minister, but withhold the funding of the members of
parliament in the opposition and the critical of the
government and not supporting the government.

That is
how the prime ministers buy political support to amend
constitutions to extend the grace period, for instance. This
extension of grace period, a normal person you would expect
them to vote against it, but it went 84 voted for it, four
against. A few of them were absent, or the seats are empty
because the members of parliament have passed away.

It
is a really huge difference. Now the prime minister argues
that political stability is necessary for economic
development, and he points to Michael Somare’s period, when
he became the first prime minister to complete his term from
2002 to 2007. It coincided with the economy growing higher
than before, and he uses that as evidence for the argument
that political stability is needed to grow the economy,
therefore amending the constitution to extend grace
periods.

DW: If you look at his time, and he
been prime minister for a fair while now, that hasn’t been
happening, has it?

MK: It
has not happened because there are no resource projects that
have taken off under his time, and commodity prices have not
increased as much as they did under Michael Somare’s
time.

The economic growth under Michael Somare that he
uses as an evidence to argue for amendments to increase the
grace period happened because of LNG, so liquidified natural
gas, the gas project that’s led by ExxonMobil, so that came
in around the time Michael Somare was prime
minister.

DW: So coincidental?

MK:
Yes, Michael Somare was prime minister up until
2011. Straight after that, you had this economic boom, and
that is because of the commodity prices picking up, as well
as new projects coming on. It was not really about political
stability. There was a survey that came out in January this
year, a survey of businessmen, business leaders, CEO of
businesses, operating in Papua New Guinea, or have got
subsidiaries in Papua New Guinea. Their concern is really
not political stability. Their concern is foreign currency.
There’s a shortage of foreign currency. Their concern is law
and order. Their concern is every other thing, like
utilities, consistent power supply, water supply. These are
the top concerns. They do not even consider political
stability as a main concern.

If you need economy to
grow, you will have to listen to what the business community
say. And business community is not saying political
stability is needed. It is favourable, but that is not a big
concern they have. Marape is alone, using a flawed logic,
making an argument that is really not backed by
evidence.

DW: Alright, you would say to the
government now then that this constitutional change they
made few weeks ago, they have got to reverse it, because it
is not good for the country?

MK:
Two things first, I do not think they will
voluntarily vote to reverse it. But if the opposition can
take that matter to the Supreme Court and ask the Supreme
Court to interpret whether that amendment was
constitutional, and the opposition tried to stop that
amendment from going through parliament and the Supreme
Court, and I think rightly so, said, ‘we cannot interfere in
the proceedings of the parliament because of separation of
powers.’

But now that it has been amended, the
opposition can take the matter to the Supreme Court and ask
the Supreme Court to interpret whether the amendment was
constitutional or not. I am hoping that they say it was
unconstitutional, and there are precedents for that. Under
Peter O’Neill, the government he led, amended the
constitution to extend the grace period from 18 months to 30
months that was taken to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme
Court said there is already a grace period that is too long,
and it insulates the government, and the government cannot
avoid being accountable to the parliament through
constitutional amendments.

The vote of no confidence
process is there and it is very critical provision in the
constitution to hold the government accountable. They ruled
that unconstitutional, and I am hoping that is the same
result we get. But it comes down to members of parliament,
such as the opposition leader or members of the opposition,
to actually take it to the courts.

DW: Now the
opposition actually still has a vote of no confidence in the
system, don’t they, because it was laid prior to this
legislative change. So is that something they have still got
an eye on? Are they going to go ahead with that? Because
they can still, legitimately, even under the new law, can’t
they?

MK: Yes, they can. Or
they can institute a new one because this law does not apply
retrospectively.

It cannot prevent one that has
already laid and there is still – even if they want to
change, withdraw that and put in a new one, they can, but
the point is, they have only got one shot. If they are
successful, they can change the prime minister. If they are
not, it triggers another 18
months.

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