By Craig Cormick
Shortly after nominations closed for the Philippines presidential election on February 7, there were eight contenders left. Electoral authorities eliminated another 70 as "nuisance" candidates. A further 18 candidates nominated for vice president and 265 for 24 Senate seats.
The three front-runners for president are Eduardo Cojuangco, a former member of President Ferdinand Marcos' kleptocracy and the candidate of the conservative Nacionalista party; Ramon Mitra, the endorsed candidate of retiring President Corazon Aquino's ruling LDP; and General Fidel Ramos, the candidate favoured by Aquino against her own party's endorsed candidate. While Cojuangco probably doesn't have the support to win a straight contest against the LDP, the split in the party could tilt the balance his way.
It seems Ramos won Aquino's backing by supporting her in all seven unsuccessful coups in the six years of her presidency. However, many Aquino supporters are dismayed by her choice of a man closely linked to the Marcos cronies right up to the time of the 1986 uprising.
Aquino has frittered away the mass popularity that lifted her to office in 1986. Herself a product of the pre-Marcos political upper crust, she failed to deliver on promises of political change and land reform. A common joke in Manila is that the only radical change Cory has made is to her hairdo.
Mitra is a very rich individual from a very poor background. He grew up an orphan after his father left and his mother died, but went on to make his fortune largely by logging the dwindling rainforests of the Philippines.
Cojuangco was one of Marcos' closest cronies, and is rumoured to be linked to the 1983 assassination of Benigno Aquino, Cory Aquino's husband and a liberal politician forced into exile by Marcos. Cojuangco fled with the Marcos retinue in 1986, but later returned. He is a major stockholder in the San Miguel food and beer consortium, and his extensive holdings include property in Australia. He has the cash necessary to buy votes.
Other candidates include Imelda Marcos, former Senate president Jovito Salonga, senator-actor Joseph Estrada and immigration bureau head Miriam Defensor Santiago.
Imelda Marcos appears to be running largely in the hope that this will somehow help her to beat criminal charges over the theft of some US$5 billion from the country's coffers. Meanwhile, the dead Ferdinand Marcos continues to run up storage bills in a vault in Hawaii, growing stiffer and dustier and, according to a recent comment by Imelda, passes.
In the event that no candidate clearly wins the May 11 elections, there is a danger that the army will step in and seize power.