In a democratic system, only the President of the Government or Prime Minister who has come to power with a mandate from the electoral body can be censured. A clear mandate, achieved with a majority vote for him or with a negotiation led by him with other political parties. The parliamentary legitimacy resulting from the exercise of the right to vote through which one becomes President of the Government or Prime Minister is the premise of the motion of censure. Without said legitimacy, the motion of censure is not directed against him, but against the person who made it. position at the head of the Government.
This is what just happened in France. Michel Barnier has been prime minister because Emmanuel Macron has decided so, but nothing more. Hence, the vote of the motion of censure to whom it disavows is the one who made the decision and not the one who has occupied the place as a consequence of it. In the history books, Michel Barnier will appear alongside George Pompidou as the only two prime ministers removed by a vote of no confidence. And legally it has been like that. But the political distance between Barnier and Pompidou is infinite. Barnier has been a prominent politician, but without his own legitimacy. Pompidou was the one who consolidated the Fifth Republic, as prime minister under the Presidency of General De Gaulle and as president elected by universal suffrage after De Gaulle’s resignation.
#singularity #constitutional #crisis #Republic
