Governor General not keeping his own words


When the constitutional crisis started last week, the Governor-General challenged the prime minister that he needed to prove his majority by appointing more members of parliament as ministers to fill the vacancies left by nine former ministers who defected to the Opposition.

The underlying rationale was that, if Sogavare failed to appoint more ministers, then it clearly showed that Sogavare did not have the numbers in Parliament to continue as prime minister. The Governor-General would then exercise his powers to call Parliament to meet to formally test the numbers on the floors of Parliament.

A week later Sogavare still needs to fill these vacancies or appoint ministers to demonstrate his numbers. As of today, Sogavare is yet to appoint up to four (or five) ministers. He has not done that as challenged by the GG.

The Governor-General now tells the nation that he will not call Parliament as he does not have the power to do so under the Constitution.

The constitution and the people of Solomon Islands do not require the GG to determine whether Sogavare, as PM, has the majority support in Parliament. Instead the constitution and the people of SI require the GG to be proactive by calling Parliament to meet when both the government and opposition claim to have majorities in Parliament. The calling of Parliament becomes absolutely necessary when the current PM fails to appoint more ministers as the GG himself so directed last week.

It is obvious that the GG does not intend to help facilitate a return to normalcy in Solomon Islands and he will continue to put up more excuses and reasons to help Sogavare remain in power with an alleged minority support in Parliament.

If the GG did not intend to call Parliament after Sogavare failed to appoint more ministers, the GG is better of not making public statements which he does not intend to implement during this constitutional crisis.