2013 Election Zoo

Today, citizens went out to vote in my country. This was a break through election with the advent of techonology that does away with manual count. There is much hope to this development as much as there is anxiety if this system can resolve the cheating and massive fraud that happen during election.

 

Fast forward to the hour of this writing when unofficial results show a count that is way more than the percentage of election returns transmitted. At some point, news networks declared that there is a blackout of the unofficial count until the discrepancies are resolved.

 

It is not just the count that caused the insecurities but rather the names that made it to the Top 10 of the partial count. Afterall, in spite of politics always having been a circus with a hodge podge of dodgy personalities peppered with showbiz madness, people still hold on to the hope that a more intelligent list will evolve.

 

And so, claiming spotlight on the list are two ladies who figure prominently by virtue of their family affiliation. If the list will prevail, our senate will have an interesting mix of big names sans the skills. For how can a citizen be confident of a senator whose only claim to experience is to have been the chief of staff of the father for the past 20 years. Whose decision to run was made by the father and who goes by the tag of being the 'mother of the senate'. This country needs a senator in the senate and not a mother, for goodness sake, Ms. Binay.

 

The other lady is the daughter of a movie icon who at one point ran for the the presidency. He died claiming he won but was cheated by a lady who eventually became president but whose presidency was peppered with issues of plunder and corruption. The would-be-president's daughter to her credit has the educational credentials and have rendered years as a public servant albeit in the showbiz context. To some degree, these elevates Ms. Poe to a 'lesser evil' choice status.

 

When the list of winners does become final, I hope that it will redeem itself otherwise we shall weather the coming years with cluess lawmakers. We prance about as an investment grade  nation but with a senate that is a cornucopia of characters unworthy of the title as senators.

 

But tomorrow, we wake up still to a circus that is the election result count. And this country shall weather the effect until the next big news breaks out.