Papua New Guinea's prime minister Peter O'Neill has urged the opposition leader Don Polye not to mislead the public about having the numbers in parliament to remove him.
Mr O'Neill last week won a vote of no-confidence which the opposition tabled against him by 85 votes to 21.
He said the opposition leader should accept defeat and stop pretending that it only narrowly lost.
In the wake of the defeat, elements of the opposition are considering whether it could still move a motion against the prime minister.
This is despite parliament having entered into a grace period, one year before a general election, when motions of no-confidence are generally disallowed.
The Post Courier reported Mr O'Neill said Mr Polye and his colleagues needed to think carefully about seeking intervention by the courts when they didn't have significant parliamentary support.
He says that under PNG's system of Government, parliament is the supreme law-making body where majority support is required in order to remove prime ministers or ministers, and to introduce or amend laws.
Third from left: Papua New Guinea prime minister Peter Oneil and members of his reshuffled cabinet. July 2016 Photo: RNZI/Courtesy of Yumi FM News
