A president for everyone

Millions of Filipinos went to the polls on May 10 to elect a president. They were probably not counting on getting three of them. Scarcely two days after the elections, aides of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo started claiming that she had won, and talked about planning her inauguration ceremony. Allies of opposing candidate Fernando Poe Jnr retorted that, in fact, he had won, and was in the process of choosing where to hold his inauguration.

Not to be outdone, 100 supporters of candidate Eddie Gil gathered three days ago and proclaimed their man president. What is strange is that Mr Gil was disqualified and his name was not even on the voting list.

At the rate things are going, I can see the day when there will be so many self-declared 'presidents' that every Filipino will have his own personal chief executive.

It is unlikely that the country would be in such a state if the elections had only been credible. Filipinos are being treated to the fallout of what many see as one of the worst elections ever. Riddled with violence, ineptly organised, poorly run and reeking of graft, the polls were the handiwork of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), whose chairman, Benjamin Abalos, was appointed by and is a political crony of Mrs Arroyo. Under his watch, resources were squandered in futile modernisation efforts, while possibly thousands of voters wound up disenfranchised.

What is worse is that Comelec apparently has not been above giving a helpful nudge to Mrs Arroyo's cause. Although Congress is supposed to count the presidential votes and decide who won, three days ago, unidentified election officials jumped the gun and told reporters that Mrs Arroyo had edged out Poe by about 900,000 votes. Actions like that not only tend to undermine the administration's appeal for unity and reconciliation, they also reinforce the suspicion that the elections have been rigged. Already, the usual rumours of coup attempts are swirling wildly around the capital.

If the leaked figures are correct, it means Mrs Arroyo's edge over Poe is hair-thin. Given the unstable and excitable nature of Philippine politics, the victory will look neither convincing nor legitimate to her opponents. It probably means that the Philippines will - again - be a country disunited under one leader.