Motion of no confidence

The no-confidence vote is a defining constitutional element of a parliamentary system, in which the government's/executive's mandate rests upon the continued support (or at least non-opposition) of the majority in the legislature.

In a parliamentary system, a vote of no confidence leads to the resignation of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, or, depending on the constitutional procedure at hand, a snap election to potentially replace the government.

[6] If a vote of no confidence passes, the prime minister is required to either resign or request the governor-general to dissolve parliament and call a general election.

[10] In a consensus government, confidence motions may be directed against any individual ministers holding office as they are also nominated by members of the legislature.

B. Kripalani moved the first-ever no-confidence motion on the floor of the Lok Sabha against the government of prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru in August 1963, immediately after the disastrous Sino-Indian War.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi faced the most no-confidence motions (15), followed by Lal Bahadur Shastri and P. V. Narasimha Rao (three each), Morarji Desai and Narendra Modi (two each), and Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajiv Gandhi, V. P. Singh, H. D. Deve Gowda, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and Manmohan Singh (one each).

[34] The only time this instrument was used was in October 1995, when the minister of justice Filippo Mancuso was forced to resign after a vote of no confidence against him passed in the Senate.

The subsequent Constitutional Court sentence in 1996[35] declared it was indeed possible to propose an individual vote of no confidence against a single minister, instead of the whole government, and that as such, the motion Mancuso was legitimate.

[37] During the 2020–2022 Malaysian political crisis, opposition members of Parliament demanded a vote of confidence in Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin,[38] but he resigned before this could take place.

Later on, President Arif Alvi dissolved the National Assembly immediately after receiving advice from Prime Minister Khan to do so, causing a constitutional crisis.

The Congressionally-appointed Constitutional Court of Peru, during the presidency of Castillo, would rule that only Congress could interpret whether or not a motion of confidence has been made.

14 days after being appointed by the president, the government has to present their programme to the Sejm and ask for a motion requiring a vote of confidence.

In order for a motion of no confidence to pass and remove the government the Sejm has to vote for a new prime minister with a majority of all of its Deputies.

On 7 August 2017, Speaker Baleka Mbete announced that she would permit a motion of no confidence in Jacob Zuma's government to proceed in the National Assembly via secret ballot.

Following the German model, votes of no confidence in Spain are constructive and so the motion must also include an alternative candidate for prime minister.

According to the Constitution, the replacement candidate named in the motion is automatically deemed to have the confidence of the Congress of Deputies and is immediately appointed as prime minister by the monarch.

Lee Kuan Yew faced his first confidence vote on 20 July 1961 following the PAP's defeat in the Hong Lim and Anson by-elections.

The rump PAP won the election with a two-thirds majority therefore staving off any further attempts by the Barisan Sosialis to move further motions of no confidence.

Under the principle of negative parliamentarism, a prime ministerial candidate nominated by the Speaker does not need the confidence of a majority of MPs to be elected.

Traditionally, in the Westminster system, the defeat of a supply bill, which concerns the spending of money, is seen to require automatically for the government to resign or ask for a new election, much like a no-confidence vote.

In France, the conditions under which the National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parliament, can bring down the government through a motion of no-confidence are outlined in paragraphs 2 and 3 of article 49 of the Constitution of the Fifth Republic: In both cases, if the motion succeeds, the prime minister is required to tender their government's resignation to the President.

During the Third Republic, members of both the Senate and Chamber of Deputies could, with a simple interpellation and a vote, force the government into resigning, creating instability.

The Fourth Republic introduced the censure motion with the majority of the membership needed to pass to replace interpellation, and removed the option of initiative by the Senate.

In that case, the matter goes for consideration of the Russian president, who may choose to dismiss the cabinet, which he can do anyway anytime at his own discretion, or just ignore the Duma's decision.

Presidential systems with a robust separation of powers and/or fixed election dates generally do not use motions of no confidence and instead use impeachment as a similar mechanism.

The first successful such motion at the federal level (the ouster of Kevin McCarthy in October 2023) was referred to informally as a "no confidence vote" in media reports covering the event.

The President, as the head of government, is not affected; there are no changes to the Cabinet or individual executive positions, which are separated from the legislature; there is no change to the party alignments in the House of Representatives (as the removed Speaker retains the congressional seat); and there are no new elections immediately after a successful motion to vacate, since Congressional elections are set in the Constitution for every two years, regardless of any other circumstances.

The cases in which a motion of no confidence has passed are generally those in which the government party's slim majority has been eliminated by either by-elections or defections, such as the 1979 vote of no confidence in the Callaghan ministry in the UK which was carried by one vote and forced a general election, which was won by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party.

[74] In 2008, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, leading a minority government, requested Governor General Michaëlle Jean to prorogue Parliament.

[75] On 1 June 2018, in Spain, the government of Mariano Rajoy was ousted after a motion of no confidence passed 180–169 after the sentence of the Gürtel corruption scandal, which involved the ruling party.