List of prime ministers defeated by votes of no confidence

This is a list of Prime Ministers defeated by either a parliamentary motion of no confidence or by the similar process of loss of supply.

Prime Ministers defeated by votes of no confidence

Australia

No Australian prime minister has ever been defeated in the House of Representatives by an explicit motion of no confidence,[1] although one was passed by the Representatives.[2] In addition, six prime ministers were unable to enact important policy and therefore resigned, two prime ministers were unable to obtain supply from the House of Representatives, one prime minister was unable to obtain supply in the Senate and was dismissed by the Governor General, and one prime minister never had the confidence of the House of Representatives (but an election was announced when he was appointed, so his defeat was without effect).

These prime ministers were able to gain supply from the House of Representatives, but were unable to pass important policy-related legislation:

These prime ministers could not gain supply from the House of Representatives or an opposition amendment to a supply bill was passed:

Gough Whitlam could not gain supply from the Senate. It thus precipitated the 1975 constitutional crisis and Whitlam was dismissed.

Following Whitlam's dismissal, Malcolm Fraser was appointed Prime Minister. He never had control of the House of Representatives, which immediately passed a motion of no confidence. However, the Governor General had already accepted the advice of Fraser to dissolve parliament by the time of the motion of no confidence, and had already acted on it before he could receive the motion, so it was without effect.[2]

Bulgaria

Canada

Cook Islands

Croatia

Czech Republic

Denmark

Estonia

France

Germany

Greece

Haiti

Hungary

India

Israel

Italy

Japan

Kosovo

Libya

Lithuania

Malta

Marshall Islands

Moldova

Mongolia

Nepal

The Netherlands

New Zealand

Niger

Norway

Papua New Guinea

Poland

Portugal

Romania

Slovakia

Slovenia

Solomon Islands

Somalia

Sweden

Turkey

Tuvalu

Ukraine

United Kingdom

  1. Lord North (1782)—This is considered to be the first motion of no confidence in history
  2. John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (1866)
  3. Benjamin Disraeli (1868)
  4. William Ewart Gladstone (1885)
  5. Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1886)
  6. William Ewart Gladstone (1886)
  7. Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1892)
  8. Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1895)
  9. Stanley Baldwin (January 1924)
  10. Ramsay MacDonald (October 1924)
  11. James Callaghan (1979)

Turks and Caicos Islands

Vanuatu

Yugoslavia

Other leaders defeated in no confidence votes

Presidents

These countries are generally parliamentary systems in which the President is elected by the Parliament but is also head of state.

French Polynesia

Kiribati

Marshall Islands

Nauru

Notes

  1. ↑ Anne Twomey (2010, Sept 10), Joining the Coalition to pass policies will backfire, Sydney Morning Herald
  2. 1 2 "The motion that might have saved the Whitlam governmen". National Archives of Australia. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
  3. ↑ Trudeau lost a motion of confidence when he failed to pass the 1974 budget. However, it was later revealed that this was done purposely by Prime Minister Trudeau in a successful attempt to win a majority government. This is the only time the tactic has been used in federal Canadian politics, but it established a precedent. Such a tactic is now called "engineering the defeat of one's own government", and the practice is widely frowned upon.
  4. 1 2 While Meighen, Diefenbaker and Trudeau were toppled by loss of supply, and Joe Clark was defeated by the passage of a subamendment to a budget bill that read "that this House has lost confidence in the government," Martin and Harper lost an actual motion of no confidence put forward by the opposition parties.
  5. ↑ "Election looms as government falls". CBC News. 25 March 2011. Retrieved 25 March 2011.
  6. ↑ The Grand Council of Fascism passed a resolution (the Ordine del Giorno Grandi) asking the king to resume his full constitutional powers, which amounted to a vote of no confidence in Mussolini.

See also

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