In practice, however, a permanent member may abstain without impairing the validity of the decision.
The chavista movement suffered "a top-to-bottom split, from state governors down to the grassroots", said Ismael García, the leader of Podemos.The emergence of what Mr García calls a "third pole" between the government and the traditional opposition allowed many of the president's supporters to vote no, or at least to abstain, without feeling that they were betraying their leader.
The temptations of classical literature are so genuinely tempting to Milton that he finds it impossible to imagine that Guyon could have seen and known and yet abstained from them without the aid of his teacher, the palmer.
It is claimed that another 56 Labour MPs abstained, by not voting without being given permission to be absent.
In the fine print, however, the DA abstained only from charging individuals without criminal records.
Instead, the two Democrats, Carol Berman and Evelyn J. Aquila, abstained from the vote, leaving Republicans without enough votes to uphold their challenges.
The political turmoil in Italy continues today, after yesterday's drama (in which Silvio Berlusconi's backers abstained from key parliamentary votes, technically leaving Mario Monti without a majority).
Overall, workers who took psychiatric sickness absence were young, were female, worked in a low-grade occupation, lived without a partner, smoked tobacco, and abstained from alcohol.
So the three countries settled on the ambiguous gesture of abstaining, without using their vetoes, which allowed the resolution to pass.
The current mayor, Mr. Gwiazdowski, then a township committeeman, abstained from the vote, saying the ordinance had been rushed through without proper preparation.
