Word: aquinos
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Although final results were not expected for two weeks, initial projections indicated that Aquino's slate had captured as many as 23 Senate seats and a substantial majority in the House. Only one opposition candidate, Movie Actor Joseph Estrada, 48, seemed assured of a Senate seat. Former Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, 63, the leader of the opposition Grand Alliance for Democracy (G.A.D.), fell just shy of the mark in the early counting, but could win a Senate seat once the official tally is completed. The radically left Partido ng Bayan (People's Party), formed only last year, entered elective...
...first truly democratic legislative election in the Philippines since Marcos abolished the old Congress in 1972, later to replace it with the unicameral National Assembly, his rubber-stamp parliament. The new Congress, which convenes in July, will take over the legislative powers that Aquino has been exercising by decree since Marcos' ouster in February 1986. Last week's election was the final step in restoring a system of checks and balances under the terms of a new constitution that was approved in a national referendum last February...
While the results reflected Aquino's immense personal popularity, they also carried the seeds of potential trouble. As a new power center, the Congress may prove difficult to control -- especially by a President who has been reluctant to use executive power. Moreover, the President's slate included an ideologically diverse assortment of candidates unified by little more than her endorsement, and that diversity leads many observers to expect the group to fragment once Congress meets. The lack of a politically coherent majority and the absence of an institutionalized parliamentary opposition could pose threats to long-term stability...
...began to denounce the elections as a fraud as soon as the first projections were announced. Accusing the government of widespread cheating, Enrile called the vote a "failure" and warned that it would lead to "instability of unimaginable magnitude." At a midweek rally, while his supporters shouted "Down with Aquino!," Enrile branded the election the "dirtiest in the nation's history." Next day, at a rally of 20,000 protesters in suburban Quezon City, Enrile declared, "Let us not stop until the cheaters have been punished." Enrile, whom Aquino dismissed as Defense Minister last November after his alleged involvement...
...Felipe, chairman of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), quickly dismissed Enrile's complaints. "There was no failure of elections," said Felipe, "but I think some losers would like to have a failure of elections." There were isolated incidents of vote buying and intimidation on both sides, and some of Aquino's relatives, either running on her slate or working for it, allegedly sought to use their family connections to influence the vote. Nonetheless, Comelec pronounced the balloting the cleanest and most orderly since the Philippines received its independence from the U.S. in 1946, an assessment generally shared by foreign observers...