The Barbados Advocate
“The word “majority” in this context
means, simply, more than half.
– Robert’s Rules of Order
In our leader of December 30 last year, under the caption, “What constitutes a majority” we had sought to interrogate the validity of an argument posited by some in Guyana that the motion of no-confidence against the governing administration should be treated as a failure since it had been passed by thirty -three votes only in a sixty-five member chamber where, according to them, a majority should ordinarily constitute 34 votes. This argument rested on the thesis that a majority should always be calculated as half of the total plus one that should come to a total of 33.5 members, which would then be rounded off to thirty-four. The then current configuration of seats in the Guyana National Assembly gave the governing administration thirty-three seats to the Opposition’s thirty two but, in a surprising move, one member on the government side, Mr Charrandass Persaud, chose to vote with the opposition, hence the thirty-three to thirty-two outcome.
