How did your deputy vote?

It is quite disheartening to realize that for most votes, there it no publicly available record of how individual deputies vote on various issues. Of course, one might be able to infer some votes by what is said in the discussion phase of the process. For example, yesterday's vote on the treaty with the US on extraditing war criminals was obviously opposed by the IAF deputies. This is clear from the statement by Zuhair Abu Ragheb. On the other hand, Rowhi Shhaltough, Abdelrahim Malhas and Raed Qaqish withdrew from the discussions. So, it was not only the IAF against the treaty. There is no published record on how each deputy voted. Alarab Al Yawm says that 17 deputies voted against, five of whom were from outside the IAF, in addition to the three who withdrew.

The parliament has a website which is quite rudimentary. It contains outdated information, and a simple list of the members of parliament. It is thus basically useless as a source of information on voting trends. The information gleaned from parliamentary discussions on confidence or the budget is useful, but only marginally.

Now, in this age of transparency and accountability, I would say that it is essential to make these records available to the public, preferably on the web. This is the only way that voters can evaluate their deputies in a scientific, objective manner. It would be a tangible move that should be easy to implement, and show that parliament is serious about reform.

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Update: Al Rai reports that the five non IAF members who voted against are Abdulkarim Dughmi, Nariman Rousan, Adab Saud, Abdulmunim Abu Zant and Ahmad Kreishan.


I still think that the parliament website should make this type of information accessible.