Let people move motion, not MPs

PAPUA New Guinea is approaching the time again when the corridors of Waigani are littered with reports and plots of a motion of no confidence against the prime minister. Usually, three groups of people come into play, the sponsors, usually with regal aspirations for dominance, the lobbyists with personal axes to grind and the in-betweens, good for nothing political prostitutes, looking to cash-in on the opportunity.
Sadly, each is so hell bent on driving home personal vendettas, they have little respect or total disregard for the national aspiration of country and citizens.
This theatrical has become a norm on the political arena at great sacrifice and disrespect to our sovereignty.
What PNG fails to grasp is the destabilising effects Westminster democracy instill in the fundamental values and ethics of leadership as defined by our Melanesian tradition.
We were masterly manipulated into believing and adopting it on the basis of self-determination, in terms of social and economic prosperity, overlooking its neo-colonial ploys and elements within aimed at suppressing native superiority and geopolitical influence.
The motion of no confidence is a classic definition of this fallacy. I am no political science student but observing simple historical facts and consequences of a motion of no confidence on the consistency of progressive national aspiration last decades, I can confidently label it as a political tool of disruption, destabilisation and division.
Talks about a motion of no confidence does not harness and strengthen but weakens our governance’s ascendency to deliver uninterrupted firm leadership.
The actual voting has done more harm for our progress as a country going forward than benefit.
PNG should seriously embrace the idea of a system where under the constitution the people move the motion of no confidence and not parliamentarians.
It should be left to the people of this country to determine confidence in their leader and not by special interests either local or international and lobbyists with unpatriotic detrimental demands and ambitions as the case these days.
The motion of no confidence protocol should be abolished from our governance system and replaced with a parliament divided into the ‘house of governors’ and the ‘house of open members’, each with their own constitutional legislative powers to veto in this case the prime minister’s executive powers and functions.
The prime minister’s leadership is basically kept in-check by the two houses and the judiciary in terms of constitutional oversight.
The costs of setting up such a structure may be a concern but what is cost compared to the national security and prosperity of our country and people.
In the words of our Prime Minister James Marape, “short term pain for long term gain”, PNG should endure pain to chart its own governance system that embraces PNG characters and heritage.
Forty-five years of living under an imported, cooked-up, and suppressive Westminster democracy with little to show is evident enough.

Douglas Patiken Barara
8-Mile, Port Moresby