More than half of the 93 sectoral parties, organizations, political parties, and coalitions that were accredited to participate in the May 14, 2007 elections face the grim being prospect of being disqualified for the May 10, 2010 polls because of their poor performance in the past two national elections.

This surfaced yesterday as the Commission on Elections (Comelec) led by Chairman Jose A.R. Melo, started reviewing their performance in the 2004 and 2007 national, local and party-list polls for purposes of determining which of them will be able to participate in next year’s political exercise in light of a provision in the Party-List Law stating that failure to win a seat in the past two national elections could be a ground for the disqualification of a sectoral party, organization or coalition to participate in future elections.

The review is being conducted by the Comelec Law Department headed by Director Ferdinand T. Rafanan.

Comelec records showed that of the 93 sectoral groups that participated in the party-list elections, only 17 of them could have won party-list seats in the House of Representatives had it not been for the April 21, 2009 decision of the Supreme Court declaring unconstitutional the two percent threshold in the distribution of additional party-list seats under the Party-List system of legislative representation.

The High Court’s decision brought to 32 the number of sectoral parties, organizations, political parties and coalitions entitled to Party-List seats in the House of Representatives.