PHUTI MOSOMANE
NATIONAL Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula has declined the African Transformation Movement’s request for a secret ballot during Tuesday’s vote on Section 89 independent panel’s report.
Last week Thursday, ATM President Vuyo Zungula wrote to Mapisa-Nqakula requesting that she consider allowing MPs to vote through a secret ballot following the debate on the Section 89 panel report.
The Speaker is empowered to exercise her discretion in determining the voting method to be employed to decide questions before Parliament where no voting method is prescribed in the Rules of the National Assembly.
In her letter to the ATM, Mapisa-Nqakula said she believes that a closed voting procedure will deprive the citizens of identifying the positions of their representatives across party lines, adding that this may facilitate the possibility of corruption aimed at influencing members to vote in a manner where they will be shielded from accountability to the people they
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