Kabataan Partylist

Legitimate sectoral parties will be the main casualties of vote-padding in this partylist elections.

This was the reaction of Kabataan Partylist President Raymond Palatino over allegations of vote-padding by suspected administration front partylist groups by over 2 million votes, saying that the plan is intended to frustrate the bid of anti-Arroyo sectoral parties to win representation in Congress.

“We noticed that many of the reported cases of vote-padding which occurred mostly in Mindanao involved alleged government-initiated partylists that so far have been lagging behind in the canvassing.”

“But what makes dagdag-bawas activities different in this elections particularly for the partylist race is that the padding of votes for certain partylists are not actually intended to increase the chances of these groups to meet the threshold but merely to bloat the total number of partylist votes,” Palatino pointed out.

“Since the partylist turnout is directly proportional to the threshold, any increase in the total number of partylist votes will add to the total number of votes needed to meet the two-percent threshold,” he explained.

“This will certainly have a bigger impact on the chances of Kabataan and other sectoral parties of elderly, disabled and minorities in meeting the two-percent threshold and clinching a seat in Congress.”

“Meeting the two-percent threshold is already difficult since there are 93 parties contending and voters only get to choose one partylist group. The lack of resources and the low level of partylist awarness also make it harder for most partylist groups to conduct and maintain a national campaign.”

Palatino said these factors explain why only a handful won representation in the last three partylist elections.

In 2004, twenty-four representatives belonging to 16 partylist groups were proclaimed. It was a modest increase from the 12 parties (20 representatives) that were proclaimed in 2001 and 10 groups (14 representatives) who won representation in the first partylist elections in 1998.

“The number of partylist representatives in the last Congress did not even reach half of the 52 reserved seats for partylist representatives.”

He added that the entry of bogus partylist groups that were allegedly sponsored by Malacanang and local politicians only made it more difficult for legitimate political and sectoral parties to win representation.

“Legitimate parties are at a clear disadvantage. These bogus partylist groups enjoy abundant resources, not to mention the backing of the administration’s fraud machinery. The playing field is obviously tilted in favor of those who have connection with the incumbent government.”

“So while Kabataan’s votes increased significantly compared to its performance in 2004, the irregular increase in the threshold could possibly foil its bid to place the first youth sectoral representative in Congress.”

Kabataan, formely known as Anak ng Bayan, was the sole youth partylist that participated in 2004 elections. However, the partylist fell prey to massive vote shaving. A significant number of its votes were anomalously counted in favor of another partylist group. It was just 35,000 votes short of clinching one seat in the Lower House.

Palatino said legitimate partylist groups are “virtually defenseless” against this blatant form of government intrusion and manipulation.

“Instead of empowering the poor, the partylist system is now being used by traditional politicians to extend their sphere of influence.”

“This is not just a “bastardization” of the partylist system. It’s a clear case of injustice and disenfranchisement and an insult to those whose interests and voices remain unrepresented in Congress.”

“In the process, genuine partylist groups are the ones being “marginalized” in a system supposedly created to give representation to marginalized segments of our society.”

Meanwhile, Palatino said they are studying and contemplating on filing disqualification cases against these alleged government-initiated partylist groups.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 3:12 pm and is filed under News and Press releases, Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.