[EDITORIALS]Blue House flu is catching

Just after the president hurt the people with his provocative remarks, an outrageous thing also happened at the National Assembly.
On Friday evening, the revision of a tax exemption law, a part of the budget bill, was rejected because of a couple of ruling party members’ mistakes. The revision included a provision that postponed the deadline to ask for tax reductions, so many businesses were about to lose quite a bit of money if the bill was not passed.
As there is a principle of not handling the same bill twice in the same session, if lawmakers wanted to pass the bill they must open a special session.
The National Assembly has failed to meet the deadline for a budget bill, so a special session is already planned. Now, another special session is needed due to the ruling party’s dumb mistake.
On Friday, 222 lawmakers attended the National Assembly session. A majority vote, 112, was required to pass the bill but only 107 ‘ayes’ were cast. Six to eight Uri Party members were said to oppose the bill or plan to abstain. If they had been in favor of the bill, it would have passed.
The question is why they didn’t. As the bill was approved by a government committee, there was no reason for governing party members to oppose it in the plenary session.
It doesn’t look like they opposed the bill on their individual convictions. Many suspect that the legislators were so distracted by other bills on the same day that they cast their votes in confusion.
Before the vote on the bill on tax reduction and exemptions, there was another vote on a bill proposed by the Grand National Party regarding the revision of the act on abolishing special income taxes for businesses using liquified petroleum gas. The Uri Party opposed the bill and killed it.
Many believe that the Uri Party members were still in the mood for rejection, unaware that they were casting their votes on the tax law.
The president creates chaos and the governing party is divided into two groups, one that wants to create a new party and the other that tries to keep the existing one. The lawmakers made such mistakes probably because they were preoccupied with questionnaires on forming a new party, a party convention or their strategies for the presidential election campaigns.
It is worrisome that the chaos and confusion in the ruling party is spreading and is now affecting the livelihood of the people.