In a deliberative assembly, a motion of no confidence is a motion declaring that a government or an officer, typically a government executive, is not fit to hold office. A vote on such a motion is a vote of no confidence; the corresponding inverses are a motion and vote of confidence. The no-confidence vote is a defining constitutional element of a parliamentary system (and derivatives such as the semi-presidential system), in which the mandate of the government or its officers relies on the continued support, or at least non-opposition, of the majority in the legislature. Systems differ in whether the motion may be directed against the prime minister, the government as a whole (whether majority, minority or coalition), individual cabinet ministers, the cabinet as a whole, or some combination of these.
A censure motion is different from a no-confidence motion. 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.
A vote in favour of censure is a non-constitutionally-binding expression of disapproval; a motion of censure may be against an individual minister or a group of ministers. Depending on a country's constitution, a no-confidence motion may be directed against the entire cabinet. Depending on the applicable rules, a mover of a censure motion may need to state the reasons for the motion, but specific reasons may not be required for no-confidence motions. However, in some countries, especially those with uncodified constitutions, what constitutes a no-confidence vote sufficient to force the resignation of high officeholders may not be clear. Even if the government is not constitutionally bound to resign after losing a given vote, such a result may be taken as an ominous sign for the government and may prompt its resignation or the calling of a snap election.
In addition to explicit motions of confidence and no-confidence, some bills (almost always the government budget and sometimes other key pieces of legislation) may be declared to be a confidence vote – that is, the vote on the bill is treated as a question of confidence in the government; a defeat of the bill expresses no confidence in the government and may cause the resignation of the prime minister and cabinet or the calling of an election.
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Parliamentary systems
There are a number of variations in this procedure between parliaments. In some countries, a motion of no confidence can be directed at the government collectively or at any individual member, including the prime minister. Sometimes, motions of confidence or no confidence are proposed even though it is clear that the government does in fact have majority support simply to pressure ministers or put opposition parties in the potentially embarrassing situation of voting in support of the government.
In many parliamentary democracies, there are limits to how often a confidence vote may be held, such as being allowed only once every three or six months. Thus, the timing of a motion of no confidence is a matter of political judgment. A motion of no confidence on a relatively trivial matter may then prove counterproductive if an issue suddenly arises that is seen to be a more credible justification for a motion of no confidence.
Sometimes, the government chooses to declare that one of its bills is a "vote of confidence" to prevent dissident members of its own party from voting against it. However, this is a political risk, especially when the prime minister's majority is not assured, such as if the ruling party/coalition is internally divided, or in minority government; if the bill fails (and thus it is shown that parliament has lost its confidence in the government), the prime minister is expected to resign or call snap elections. In Westminster systems, the government budget is always a vote of confidence; even a successful amendment to the budget may be considered a no-confidence vote.
It is not necessarily the case that a vote with the effect of a motion of no confidence be introduced as such. As stated above, certain pieces of legislation may be treated as confidence issues. In some cases, the motion may be an ordinary legislative or procedural matter of little substantive importance used for the purpose of testing the government's majority, such as the 1895 vote of no confidence in the Earl of Rosebery's government, which was technically a motion to reduce the salary of a minister by a nominal sum.
Australia
In the Australian Parliament, a motion of no confidence requires a majority of the members present in the House of Representatives to agree to it. The House of Representatives has 150 members and so requires 76 votes in favour of the motion when all members of the House are present. A straight vote of no confidence in the Australian government and a motion or amendment censuring a government have never been successful in the House of Representatives. However, governments have on eight occasions resigned or advised a dissolution after their defeat on other questions before the House. The last time that a government resigned after being defeated in the House came in October 1941, when the House rejected the budget of Arthur Fadden's minority government.
Specific motions of no confidence or censure against the prime minister, ministers, the leader of the opposition, senators and leaders of political parties have been successful on some occasions. Motions of no confidence against the government may be passed in the Senate but have little or no impact in the House. However, the Senate's right to refuse supply helped spark the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis.
Bangladesh
In the Parliament of Bangladesh, there is no provision to hold motions of no confidence, as a result of Article 70 of the Constitution of Bangladesh, which prohibits members of Parliament from voting against their party and made the removal of a sitting government unattainable.
Canada
In Canada, a vote of no confidence is a motion that the House of Commons (federal) or legislative assembly (provincial) no longer has confidence in the incumbent government. A no-confidence motion may be directed against only the incumbent government, with confidence motions against the Official Opposition being inadmissible. Originating as a constitutional convention, it remains an uncodified practice which is not outlined in any standing orders for the House of Commons.
In the House of Commons, a member of parliament may introduce a motion that explicitly states the House has no confidence in the incumbent government. In addition to explicit motions of no confidence, several other motions and bills are also considered implicit motions of confidence, and a vote of no confidence may be asserted automatically if such a bill fails to pass. Bills and motions that are considered implicit motions of confidence include appropriations or supply bills, motions concerning budgetary policy, and the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne. The government may also declare any bill or motion to be a question of confidence. Although the failure to pass those bills and motions can serve as an implicit expression of a vote of no confidence, the opposition is not required to formally present this failure as a motion of no-confidence against the government.
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. The governor-general may refuse a request for dissolution if an election has recently been held or there is another leader who can likely gain the confidence of the House. If a dissolution request is refused, the prime minister must resign, and the governor-general invites the leader of another coalition/party to form a new government. Six motions of no confidence have been passed in the House of Commons: in 1926, 1963, 1974, 1979, 2005, and 2011. All successful votes of no confidence in the 20th century were the result of a loss of supply; votes of no confidence in 2005 and 2011 were the result of explicit confidence motions presented by the opposition.
In 1968, the standing orders respecting supply were amended to limit opposition to two confidence motions on a given opposition day in each of the three supply periods. This provision was repealed in June 1985.
In 1984, a proposal was made to consider the election of speaker to not be a matter of confidence. This was passed in 1985 and is now part of the standing orders.
The confidence convention is also present in the provincial legislatures of Canada, operating much like their federal counterpart. However, the decision to dissolve the legislature and call an election or to see if another coalition/party can form a government is left to the provincial lieutenant-governor.
Two Canadian territories, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, operate as a consensus government system in which the premier is chosen by the members of the nonpartisan legislature. If a vote of no confidence against the incumbent government passes, the premier and the cabinet are removed from office, and the legislature elects a new premier. 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.
Czech Republic
The Constitution of the Czech Republic provides for a government responsible to the Chamber of Deputies (the lower chamber of the Czech parliament). Any new government, appointed after the demise of previous one, must—no more than 30 days after being appointed by the president of the republic—request a motion of confidence vote from the Chamber of Deputies. The motion of confidence is passed if more deputies vote for the government than against it. Otherwise, the government must resign and the president can appoint a new government. If this government also fails to gain confidence, then the President of the republic must appoint a prime minister proposed by the president of the Chamber of Deputies. If this government still fails to gain confidence of the Chamber, then the president of the republic may choose either to again appoint a prime minister of his choice (the government still need to pass motion of confidence) or to order the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies and set new elections.
The government can at any time ask the Chamber of Deputies for a vote of confidence. The government can also connect voting on a government-sponsored bill with a request for a vote of confidence. If the bill fails to pass in Chamber of Deputies it is equivalent to a lost vote of confidence. In this case, the Chamber has to vote on the proposed bill within three months of its submission (otherwise the president of the republic can dissolve it).
The Chamber of Deputies may itself start debate on a vote of no confidence in the government, but only if it has been submitted in writing by at least fifty Deputies. To adopt the resolution, an absolute majority of all Deputies have to vote against the government.
Denmark
Paragraph 15 of the Danish Constitution states that "A Minister shall not remain in office after the Folketing has passed a vote of no confidence in him" and that "When the Folketing passes a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister, he shall ask for the dismissal of the Ministry unless writs are to be issued for a general election." The vote requires a simple majority.
Votes of no confidence against the government are rare in Denmark, only occurring in 1909, 1947 and 1975. Generally the government will resign or call for an election before a vote of no confidence.
European Union
The European Parliament can dismiss the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, through a successful motion of no confidence, which requires a two-thirds majority vote. A successful vote on the motion leads to the resignation of the entire Commission.
Germany
In Germany, a vote of no confidence in the federal chancellor requires the opposition, on the same ballot, to propose a candidate of its own whom it wants the federal president to appoint as its successor. Thus, a motion of no confidence may be brought forward only if there is a positive majority for the new candidate. The idea was to prevent the state crises that occurred near the end of the German Weimar Republic. Frequently, chancellors were then turned out of the office without their successors having enough parliamentary support to govern. Unlike the British system, chancellors do not have to resign in response to the failure of a vote of confidence if it has been initiated by them, rather than by the parliamentary opposition, but they may ask the president to call general elections, a request that the president decides on whether to fulfil.
Greece
The Parliament may, by its decision, withdraw its confidence from the Government or from a member of it. A motion of no confidence can only be submitted six months after the Parliament has rejected a previous one. The motion must be signed by at least one-sixth of the members and must clearly state the issues to be debated. A motion of no confidence is accepted only if it is approved by the absolute majority of the total number of members.
India
In India, a motion of no confidence can be introduced only in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of the Parliament of India) and after at least 50 Lok Sabha members support it, the Speaker may grant a leave and after considering the state of business in the House, allot a day or days or part OF a day for the discussion of the motion (under sub-rule (2) and (3) of rule 198 of Lok Sabha Rules, 16th edition). If the motion carries, the House debates and votes on the motion. If a majority of the members vote in favour of the motion, it is passed, and all the ministers are expected to resign on their moral grounds.
J. 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. As of August 2023, 31 no-confidence motions have been moved. 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). Prime Minister Vajpayee lost the no-confidence motion by a margin of one vote (269–270) on 17 April 1999. Prime Minister Desai resigned on 12 July 1979 after being defeated in a vote of no-confidence, V. P. Singh and H. D. Deve Gowda were also removed in no-confidence motion. The two most recent no-confidence motions were brought against the Narendra Modi government, in 2018 and in 2023(due to the ethnic violence in the state of Manipur), both of which were failed in the Lok Sabha.
Even after the Anti-Defection Law, when the majority party has an absolute majority and it can whip party members to vote in favour of the government; still it is possible to remove the government by a no-confidence motion if the ruling party breaks by more than one third.
Ireland
In Ireland, if a motion of no confidence in the Taoiseach or the government of Ireland is passed by Dáil Éireann, then the Taoiseach may request that the President dissolve the Dáil and call a general election. Whether or not to grant this request is at the discretion of the President, though no President has ever refused a request for dissolution. Should the President refuse to dissolve the Dáil, the Taoiseach and government must resign.
Israel
The motion of no confidence is outlined in Israeli Basic Law Article 28 and Article 44 of the Knesset's Rule of Procedure.
Despite often tabling motions of no confidence in the Knesset, opposition parties have only ever toppled a sitting government once, that being when Labor Party leader Shimon Peres attempted to form a government of left-wing factions and ultra-orthodox parties, in a scandal known as the dirty trick, to replace the national unity government of Likud's Yitzhak Shamir. However, despite securing the non-confidence motion, Shamir managed to stay on as prime minister for the remainder of the 12th Knesset.
Italy
In Italy, the government requires the support of both houses of Parliament. Within ten days of the government's formation, a confidence motion must be passed. Five governments were forced to resign when a motion of confidence in them failed to pass in one of the houses of Parliament: the eighth De Gasperi cabinet in 1953, the first Fanfani cabinet in 1954, the first Andreotti cabinet in 1972, the fifth Andreotti cabinet in 1979 and the seventh Fanfani cabinet in 1987.
Parliament can withdraw its support to the government through a vote of no confidence. A vote of no confidence may be proposed if a tenth of the members of either house sign the proposition and within three days before the appointed date, the vote can be brought into the discussion.
Since the drafting of the Constitution of Italy, Parliament has not passed any no confidence motion against the whole cabinet, as government crises often ended with prime ministers resigning after becoming aware the majority of parliament did not support them anymore, before a no confidence motion could be put to vote or even before such a motion was presented. 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 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.
The government can also make any vote a matter of confidence. In the entire history of the Republic of Italy, only two governments were forced to resign when a vote they had made a matter of confidence failed: the first Prodi cabinet in 1996, and the second Prodi cabinet in 2006. In both cases, the vote made a matter of confidence was a vote on a resolution approving the prime minister's address to one of the houses of Parliament.
Japan
Article 69 of the 1947 Constitution of Japan provides that "if the House of Representatives passes a non-confidence resolution, or rejects a confidence resolution, the Cabinet shall resign en masse, unless the House of Representatives is dissolved within ten (10) days."
Since the Japanese political system has been dominated by the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party for all but 6 years since 1955, either in majority governments or coalitions with Komeito, non-confidence votes in the government have been rare. Yet, two governments, those of Prime Ministers Masayoshi Ōhira and Kiichi Miyazawa were brought down after significant portions of their own party turned against them.
Malaysia
In Malaysia's federal political system, votes of confidence in state legislative assemblies of Malaysia have removed its heads of state governments four times, the most recent being Faizal Azumu's Perak ministry in 2020. During the 2020–2022 Malaysian political crisis, opposition members of Parliament demanded a vote of confidence in Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, but he resigned before this could take place. After the 2022 Malaysian general election, in order to quell the scepticism on Anwar Ibrahim's legitimacy as prime minister, Anwar's government tabled a motion of confidence in the Dewan Rakyat on 19 December 2022, which was passed by a voice vote on the same day, thereby solidifying his position as prime minister.
Pakistan
The Constitution of Pakistan has provision for a no-confidence motion in all constituents of the Electoral College of the state. The motions can target speakers and deputy speakers of provincial and national assemblies, the prime minister, chief ministers of provinces, as well as the chairman and deputy chairman of Senate. Before it can be put for a vote on the pertinent house's floor, it must have the backing of at least 20% of the elected members in all cases except those moved against speakers or deputy speakers in which case there is no minimum. After being put to vote, the motion is deemed to be successful only if passed by a majority.
The no-confidence procedure has historically been mostly used to remove speakers and deputy speakers. Of the 11 times that the motion has been invoked, nine cases targeted those posts, with four being effective. Votes of no confidence in prime ministers are extremely rare. In November 1989, Benazir Bhutto faced an ultimately unsuccessful motion of no confidence by Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi. Same is the case for provincial chief ministers, as the only instance of its use is the one moved in January 2018 against Sanaullah Zehri, the chief minister of Balochistan, who resigned before the vote could take place.
Since gaining independence in 1947, only Imran Khan was successfully removed as prime minister through a motion of no confidence in 2022. An earlier attempt led by the opposition was dismissed by the deputy speaker Qasim Suri using Article 5 of the constitution. Later on, President Arif Alvi dissolved the National Assembly immediately after receiving advice from Prime Minister Khan to do so, causing a constitutional crisis. On 7 April 2022, the Supreme Court of Pakistan ruled that the dismissal of the no-confidence motion, the prorogation of the National Assembly, advice of Khan to president Arif Alvi to dissolve the National Assembly and subsequent dissolution of the National Assembly were unconstitutional, and overturned these actions. On 10 April 2022, the reconvened National Assembly passed the motion of no confidence against Khan by a majority vote of 172, being the first successful ousting through no–confidence motion.
Peru
In Peru, both the legislative and the executive branches have the power to bring a motion of no confidence against acting legal members of the other branch. The president of the Cabinet may propose a motion of no confidence against any minister to Congress, which then needs more than half the Congress to approve it. The president of the republic may dissolve Congress if it has censured or denied its confidence to two Cabinets. The relevant Articles 132–134 are in the 1993 version of the Constitution of Peru.
