The machine seemed to him to be working all right, but at the end of the day, it showed a total vote of only twenty-one for the rival assemblymen, whereas a total vote of eight to nine hundred was recorded for the candidates for each of the other offices.
In 1997, Mr. Chretien similarly called an election at the three-and-a-half-year marker, hoping to increase his parliamentary majority, but voters, angry about austere fiscal policies that weakened the social safety net, slashed his majority by 22 seats, and he won a popular vote of only 38percentt.
The notion that governments resign after losing a vote of confidence may only be a convention, he added, but MPs would be very surprised if that were ignored.
The European Parliament can dissolve the Commission as a whole following a vote of no-confidence but only the President can request the resignation of an individual Commissioner.
Elected for the first time by a vote of party members, only a third of Conservative MPs actually expressed their preference for him over Mr Portillo and Mr Clarke last year.
Parliament approved the bailout agreement last week by a vote of 222 to 64, but only with the support of opposition parties.
On December 2 , 1981 the Canadian House of Commons approved Trudeau's constitutional reform resolution with a vote of 246 to 24 (only the representatives from Quebec dissented), and on April 17 , 1982 Queen Elizabeth II declared Canada's independence from the British Parliament.
The Senate's Commerce Committee, which Conkling chaired, voted unanimously to reject the nominees, and the full Senate rejected Roosevelt and Prince by a vote of 31 25, confirming Merritt only because Sharpe's term had expired.
The leader survived a vote of no confidence in June only after offering a vague suggestion that he might resign.
