Political Scientist Professor Hamid Ghany says Senate President Wade Mark’s decision to use his casting vote to break a 15-15 deadlock and pass the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property (Amendment) Bill, 2026, is consistent with previous deviations in the use of casting votes.
The Senate President cast the deciding vote on Monday night, allowing the legislation to pass 16-15 after all 15 Government Senators voted in favour and the six Opposition and nine Independent Senators voted against it.
In explaining his decision, Mr Mark said he was required to exercise a casting vote in the event of an equality of votes and later told senators there was no settled practice regarding the use of the casting vote in relation to maintaining the status quo.
Professor Ghany agreed with that interpretation, saying there was evidence of deviations from the convention in the past.
“There is considerable evidence from the past to show that there has been a deviation in the exercise of the casting vote and there is no settled practice. What has been happening is a number of persons have been trying to import a British Parliamentary convention into our Constitutional Republic to dictate how the vote ought to be cast. But our Constitution does not specify how the vote is to be exercised so that the Presiding Officer is free to exercise the vote in whatever way the Presiding Officer chooses to do so because the Constitution and the Standing Orders do not direct him or her to vote in a particular way.”
The Public Procurement Amendment Bill was the second Government bill in less than a week to pass the Senate following a 15-15 deadlock resolved by the Senate President’s casting vote. He also cast the deciding vote on September 24th to secure passage of the Special Operations Bill, 2026.
On whether President Christine Kangaloo has any constitutional discretion to withhold assent from the Bills, Professor Ghany said she does not, arguing that where the Constitution provides for the President to act on the advice of Cabinet, the President’s decision must be based on that advice.
He also rejected what he described as attempts to characterise current Constitutional and Parliamentary developments as a move towards dictatorship, arguing that the processes so far have been conducted within the constitutional framework.
“The constitution is very clear. The President can either indicate that she assents or she withholds assent from the Bill. But in the Special Operations Bill, the Opposition spent a considerable amount of time explaining to the public that wherever you see the word President standing on its own, it means President on the advice of Cabinet. And they are right. It means President on the advice of Cabinet so that the President can either assent or withhold assent but that would be on the basis of Cabinet advising the President to do so, so that there is no discretion for the President to exercise. We’ve never had this before. And no President has ever exercised any discretion to do that. And what I would say is that if that were to happen, if the President were to withhold assent without a Cabinet directive, then that would be the dictatorship that people are talking about because right now there’s a lot of loose and irresponsible talk about dictatorship when everything so far is being conducted in accordance with the Constitution, not British Parliamentary traditions or conventions, with our Constitution, so that any attempt to do otherwise with regard to assent to the Bill would open the door to that dictatorship that people are talking about. The President has no power to go and defy the Cabinet on a matter where it is clearly stated in the Constitution that where you see the word President standing on its own, as the Opposition said, it means President on the advice of Cabinet.”