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| AsiaViews, Edition: 48/VI/March2010 |
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| Sans NPC, NP may not get dominant minority status |
| Coalition needed to get server for vote transmission monitoring on election day |
MANILA, Philippines—The revived Nacionalista Party (NP) of presidential aspirant Manuel Villar Jr. may be a bigger organization than the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) where he got his running mate, but this smaller party holds the key to winning a crucial battle in this election.
The NP is fighting tooth and nail with the Liberal Party (LP) over the accreditation as the dominant minority in the May elections. Whichever the Commission on Elections (Comelec) decide to accredit will have the right to get a server that, on election day, will automatically receive vote transmissions from precincts all over the country.
Based on Newsbreak’s analysis of how the Comelec intends to assess the parties’ application, the LP is ahead in most of the criteria.
However, if NP’s organization is reinforced by the NPC’s, LP will be left behind in terms of number of incumbent officials in its roster, number of party chapters nationwide, and number of candidates in May.
The Comelec heard both sides Tuesday on the validity of the NP-NPC coalition, which the LP is questioning.
The Liberals said in its petition that the NP and the NPC formed their coalition after the Aug. 17, 2009, deadline for the accreditation of political parties, and should therefore be treated still as 2 separate parties. Some NPC members claim that they were not consulted by party leaders on coalescing with NP.
Numbers
According to Commissioner Rene Sarmiento, the poll body will be using the formula used in previous elections in determining which are the dominant majority and dominant minority parties.
Four main factors will be considered, with corresponding percentage points:
length of the party’s history or existence (20%);
number of members who are incumbent elective officials 90 days before election (25%);
number identified political chapters (25%);
number of candidates fielded for the upcoming elections (40%).
Comelec will give a perfect 20% to parties that were formed before 1987, the year the current Constitution was ratified. Both the NP (which was formed in 1907) and the LP (formed in 1945) will pass this criterion.
Advantage
In 2 of the 3 other criteria, the LP has an advantage over the NP, based on the submissions made by the parties to the Comelec)
There more Nacionalistas who are incumbents (2,107), but their number is only slightly higher than the Liberals (1,959).
The LP has more chapters (1,393) against the NP’s 956, and is fielding a slightly higher number of candidates (7,946) than the NP (7,213). The last criterion has the biggest weight in the assessment (40%) to be made by the Comelec.
However, if the Comelec will recognize the NP-NPC coalition, the balance will tilt against the LP.
With the NPC reinforcement, NP’s number of incumbents will almost double to 3,941, leaving the LP with just about half of that.
The NP-NPC team-up will also be ahead in the 2 remaining criteria—1,520 chapters nationwide, and 10,439 candidates fielded in the May polls.
Perks
The LP and NP, whose standard bearers are neck and neck in surveys, would understandably want to get the dominant minority party status.
In past elections that were done manually, it was access to the limited copies of election returns (ERs) that parties vied for. The Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) in each precinct manually accomplished 7 copies of the ERs. The dominant majority party received the fourth copy, while the dominant minority party received the fifth copy.
ERs then were crucial in monitoring cheating attempts by rival groups, and served as a major reference in pre-proclamation protests when the consolidated figures in the certificates of canvass were being questioned.
In the automated elections, which the Philippines will be conducting nationwide for the first time, there will be no more quarrels over the ERs—30 copies will be printed from each precinct.
Aside from the dominant majority and minority parties, 10 major national parties and 2 major local parties will also receive copies of the ERs.
Commissioner Sarmiento also earlier said that securing ERs would not be as relevant this time because the count from precincts will be consolidated within hours anyway, and the results of the elections will be available in a few days.
What the LP and NP are fighting over is custody of one of the limited servers that the Comelec will distribute. Five servers—laptops—will have the capability to receive the vote count to be transmitted from the 80,000 precincts and some 1,700 city and municipal canvassing centers nationwide.
These servers will be distributed to the Comelec, the watchdog Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, the media industry association Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas, the dominant majority party (presumably Lakas-Kampi-CMD), and whichever will be accredited as the dominant minority party.
Access to the server will therefore provide any party and its candidates information on the votes as they are canvassed, as well as allow them to audit the results later if there are inconsistencies in the reported figures. |
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| By Reynaldo Santos Jr. |
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| Newsbreak, 03 March 2010 |
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