Opposition in Vanuatu urges President not to dissolve Parliament

Transcript

A leading opposition MP in Vanuatu is urging the president not to dissolve Parliament, despite the government and opposition's failure to end a political impasse.

Joe Natuman and the Prime Minister Sato Kilman have been meeting all weekend to try and resolve the impasse, which began after 14 government MPs were last month jailed for bribery.

On Friday, the country's highest court rejected their appeals, which means the 14 are now no longer MPs.

Mr Kilman has rejected the opposition's proposal to form a government of national unity , instead saying he'd rather the President Baldwin Lonsdale dissolve parliament, which he threatened to do if an agreement was not reached by Sunday.

However, the acting Speaker has now called parliament to meet on the 14th of December to pass a budget.

Mr Natuman told our correspondent Hilaire Bule the president should respect this calling.

JOE NATUMAN: Yesterday, the 22nd of November, effectively means that they are now no longer members of parliament. So the total members of parliament, minus the 14 members, is now 38 and the 38 members of parliament can now proceed to function as a parliament.

HILAIRE BULE: So the simple majority will mean half plus one of the 38, not 52.

JN: It means that - this was the ruling by the appeal court - that currently members of parliament will be 38, so half plus one of that 38 is 20, or 19-point-something, but it means 20 members. Currently, the members of parliament in the opposition we have 25 members, one has to take his oath - Kenneth Natapei - but we have the numbers. And we even have the two-thirds majority of 38, which is 25.333, so currently we have 25 members of parliament.

HB: But the Council of Ministers requested the President of the Republic to dissolve the parliament, and on the other hand the speaker of parliament has summoned parliament to meet on the 14th of December.

JN: Yes, the Council of Ministers made a request to the President some time ago but the president has halted from the decision until he had the court cases transpired, and also the President himself requested us - the opposition and the government - to come up with some arrangement to have a stable government and we have done our part, the opposition, including our other team leaders of the opposition when we went to speak with the Prime Minister, even this morning, regarding some proposals, bu the Prime Minister has rejected that and he's trying to get the parliament dissolved. Meanwhile, the acting speaker of parliament has issued notice for the second authorisation of parliament which we have requested, and he has complied with our request because we have tried to get a court order to force him to do so and he has done that this morning, to call a session of parliament to authorise the budget for 2016. So on the call of the speaker on the 14th of December we will debate the appropriation bill. Now that the parliament is called, we hope that the president of the republic will respect the calling and will not do anything that might stop the calling of parliament. So that's what we have done today to wait for that calling on the 14th of December in which we will approve the budget which will assist the population of the country to meet some of the urgent disaster needs that we are facing at the moment.