I am also a MCA Youth delegate who attended the Annual General Meeting (AGM). I strongly feel that both sides had betrayed the trust of the party and would not want to defend any one for their shameful act.

I only want to highlight the number game played by the Speaker so that he could shoulder some responsibility for what had happen.

In his 'Face lost in face-saving exercise' (Aug 4), Hon was right in questioning the way votes were counted for the motion to remove the 'biased' Speaker (Lim Hong Sang).

After the chair-flying incident, delegates and others were scathing around the hall, as it is not safe to sit in the middle of the hall anymore. In that chaotic situation, a lot of delegates admitted that 'a show of hands' to remove the Speaker was 'quite difficult'. In fact, there were many delegates who did not want to get sucked into this irrational and somehow childish fight between chairman Ong Tee Keat and secretary-general, Yew Tiong Look.

Under such circumstances, Yew moved a motion requesting a secret ballot for the motion to remove the Speaker even though he should have presented his report, which was allegedly prepared not by him but by Ong.

Reading out the constitution, the Speaker agreed that this could be done if at least 1/3 of the delegates requested for it. Votes were taken by a show of hands for the secret ballot request. The first count put it at 287.

After some protest as mentioned by Hon, second count put it at 318. The Speaker then announced that since 318 is obviously less than the1/3 from the total 1187 (it is about 27% of 1187 i.e those who had 'reported' for the AGM), the request for secret ballot was denied. This followed by a request for re-count, clashes and finally the walkout.

At that time, many delegates had left the hall and many more may not had wanted to vote by a show of hand as it was perceived to be 'not safe'. Instead of immediately announcing that the motion fell short of 1/3 approval, the Speaker continued to take the vote count.

This is to get the total votes to determine whether the 1/3 majority was reached. As a veteran lawyer, the speaker knows very well that the total should not be the 1187 but should be the number taken as "present and voting".

This was confirmed later when Ong faced an embarrassing moment after the emergency motion to sack Yew was tabled. Those who remained after the walkout were worried that they might not have the 2/3 majority vote required by the constitution, as 2/3 of 1187 would be792.

In fact, the result counted by hands showed that it was 730 votes for the removal. Ong's team was hesitating for quite a while, as it would be a disaster if the motion to sack his opponents could not be passed.

The Speaker then came to the rescue when he read out the constitution and claimed that the English version of 'present and voting' should be used instead of the Chinese version (which only stated 'those present').

The Speaker conveniently forgot that he had used the Chinese version to decide on the secret ballot when he ruled that 1187 should be the total. The delegates who were stuck at that point of time, immediately gave him a big round of applause as they were so glad that the Speaker had found a 'loop-hole' for them to execute the long awaited kill. This was really shocking for those who could still think rationally.

In my opinion, the inability to get a fair counting for the motion for a secret ballot was the most important dispute that had caused the walkout. Every body knew that the impartial behavior of the speaker was the main contention. It can make or break the meeting. I further speculate that if the vote for 'present and voting' had being taken by the Speaker, the motion for secret ballot would have been passed.

The total 'present and voting' at that point of time is highly probable to be less than 954 (1/3 of 954 is 318). Nevertheless, I did not think that the Speaker will be removed as a result since Ong's side was clearly having the simple majority required to keep him.

But the Speaker obviously felt that it was too risky for him to take any chances. If he was successfully removed, then the outcome of the meeting could had been the other way around.

The Speaker turned out to be 'the hero of the day'. He had successfully denied his own removal by cleverly choosing the way he want to interpret the constitution. Thanks to the number games played by the Speaker (taking 318/1187 as less than 1/3 but taking 730/762as more than 2/3), the meeting had ended with all the resolutions passed without debate.