Opposition withdraws motion of no-confidence

Opposition Leader Sir Mekere Morauta announced today that he and Bulolo MP Sam Basil had written to the Speaker withdrawing the motion of no-confidence in the Prime Minister dated July 28, 2009.  

Sir Mekere said:  “We have withdrawn the motion because we do not have confidence in the integrity of the process being used by the Government to ‘consider’ the motion. 

“We have heard from reliable sources in government that the private business committee will reject the motion, allegedly on some technical ground.”

Sir Mekere said that to avoid this, the motion had been withdrawn and that the Opposition had requested the Speaker to provide urgent advice on the alleged ‘defects’ of the motion. 

“We want the Speaker to tell us what we should do to satisfy the private business committee, so that we can submit a new motion that will conform to the committee’s ‘requirements’,” he said.

“At the same time we shall seek legal advice on the issue of the process of tabling a motion of no-confidence in the Prime Minister.

Sir Mekere said that since last week he had been seeking an appointment with the Speaker and the Clerk to verify the information about the Government’s intention to prevent the motion from being tabled, but had not been successful in getting an appointment.

“We do not want to fall into the game of dirty tricks being played by the Government to block the motion, so we decided to withdraw it and put the Government on the spot by asking the Speaker to advise us,” he said.

“The Speaker and the Clerk must remember they are not the servants of the Government.

“They serve the Parliament, which means they are obliged, legally and morally, to advise the Opposition.”