Word: comelec
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...polls. "This is especially so at the level of local rather than national politics," says Benito Lim, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines, who believes the baleful tradition of "guns, goons and gold" at elections will be hard to uproot. Still, Comelec, the national election commission, hopes the tough gun ban (the early arrests have been widely publicized in the local media) will reduce the potential for violence in the run-up to the polls, along with the efforts by the security forces to break up the private armed groups of feudal-style political strongmen scattered...
...bans are always rolled out general and mid-term elections in the Philippines, held every six and three years, respectively. The past three elections have each seen around 120 killings of candidates, supporters and Comelec officials, and around 250 violent incidents...
...faced a clamor of calls to dismantle the long-established private armed groups run by regionally powerful strongmen to protect their political and economic interests. Elections routinely become a dirty showdown when a clean sweep isn't anticipated, as armed goons intimidate rival candidates, cow voters and coerce Comelec officials with bribes and threats to rig votes...
Ramon 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...
...incidents, including 34 on polling day itself. Still, that is a marked improvement over the 158 killings reported during the 1986 presidential campaign, which precipitated Marcos' ouster. This year's death toll might have been higher if police had not disarmed an incendiary device in a toilet of the Comelec building last week. Police said the bomb, thought to have been planted by G.A.D. supporters, could have destroyed the three-story structure...