Willie N Ng
ON the matter of people withholding their votes, there is a striking parallel between our people’s initiative signature campaign and the just-concluded Thai parliamentary elections.
By boycotting the elections, the opposition created 38 vacant seats in the Thai parliament. Under the law, unless all seats are occupied, a government cannot be formed.
Thus, even if Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s party won a majority of the parliament seats, he could not form a government. That plus a nudge from King Bhumibol Adulyadej and unrelenting attacks from the opposition made him turn in his resignation.
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In our people’s initiative, its organizers must get the signatures of at least 12 percent of all registered voters and at least 3 percent of the voters in each congressional district.
While its organizers claim to have gathered 8.3 million votes in just 14 days, they must still meet the requirement of the 3 percent per district.
Failure to do this in even one district means kaput in this enterprise on which so much money has been invested.
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The opposition has been leading signature boycotts in many areas.
In parts of Mindanao, people have refused blandishments to sign up. In a town in Cotabato, out of 20,000 people, only 600 signed up.
To prove that there are honest men in the Comelec, some of its regional officials complain of being pressured to speed up the verification of signatures while others cite cases of towns having more signatures than voters as well as signatures obviously signed by one person.
Yesterday, the Catholic bishops had their pastoral letter warning against the signature campaign read in all churches. Organizers who boast of being able to double their 8.3 million signatures may find the going a little tougher.
But then they have their ways, as the good Comelec men can tell you.
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