The six-month parliament
The new cabinet seems to be so flexible that, in comparison with the previous one, at least four ministers will resign or be forced to resign for any reason, be that to avoid a grilling motion or to make urgent political adaptations. This government is flexible enough to ‘absorb’ a magnitude eight parliamentary quake regardless of whether it is intentional or not. The current government formation and the way portfolios have been distributed indicate that it can resist all sorts of political shocks.
The first grilling motion will give a full review of lawmakers’ attitudes, namely of those who have not, so far, showed any clearly defined political affiliations. The first motion will end up making a limited reshuffle. Further motions will be subjected to the ups and downs of referral to the legislative or constitutional committees. So, the motion to be filed by the opposition will carry no surprises and the scenarios are very predictable.
However, if at any point a grilling motion is filed by a pro-government MP, it could lead to constitutionally dissolving the parliament after filing a motion of lack of cooperation with the government. According to the current parliamentary structure, grilling motions filed by any opposition MP against any minister will not have any significant impact regardless of how important the issue discussed is.
The motion will not get enough majority support to knock off grilled minister. But if the motion is filed by a pro-government MP, the parliament will be dissolved within a week without further discussion. This raises a question whether this parliament will be annulled or not. As a matter of fact, 21 candidates have so far filed contests and any of these can lead to dissolving the parliament, though this is not likely to happen, especially since the contests are based on vote-counts and they can replace some MPs but are expected to find a strong legal loophole to get the parliament annulled.
A constitutional dissolution is not likely to happen, though the door is open for that, because this parliament has limited opposition. All grilling motions are controlled by the government. Finally, like I previously predicted, this parliament will only last for six months but now I believe it will not even last that long.