LANAO DEL SUR SPECIAL POLLS: “A deliberate systematic and institutional failure”

Written by By Froilan Gallardo and Charina Sanz Zarate/MindaNews
Saturday, 07 July 2007 11 33 58

1st of four parts

MARAWI CITY (MindaNews/06 July) -- Frustrated over the way elections are conducted in Lanao del Sur, provincial board candidate Aga-Khan Mangondato Sharief bared a plan that would spare the province from future electoral fraud: “privatize the Philippine Government including the Commission on Elections.”

“Make a public bidding and whoever wins the franchise gets to operate the Comelec. The government will earn; the franchisee could be a professional and credible firm. Why, it may even lead to professionalizing this whole election business,” says Sharief, who also goes by the name “Bin Ladin” for his uncanny resemblance with the Al Qaeda chief.

“We have lost faith in these election officials,” said Sharief whose “desperate measures” also included filing a case against Comelec officials before the Shariah court of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, for alleged “massive vote padding” to “not counting the votes” cast in their favor, and even to the failure of election personnel to show up in many towns during the May 14 polls.

2nd of a series