2016 will emerge as the year of better electoral procedures

Image source: Global Balita

The next presidential and local elections in the Philippines in Southeast Asia is predicted to be more orderly, peaceful and cleaner, more honest and characterized with higher integrity than all the other elections in the country and in Asia's history.

Asia and the Philippines have never had the best of the best in electoral systems. For 90% or more of the countries in the region, dishonesty, crime and violence, fraud and massive disorder in many parts of the nations mar elections. This has nothing to do with the inherent goodness of many Asian peoples but mostly it has its roots in age-old patriarchal and antiquated means of selection of leaders.

The lack of appropriate technology, both hardware and software prevent elections from being done in the proper manner thus resulting in the selection of national leaders that are exceedingly corrupt, revel in violent means of problem resolution or create instead of solve conflicts in their own turf. Hopefully, with better technology for both the public sector and for select groups in the private sector, in the Philippines, there is a forecast for improved conditions for holding clean, honest, orderly and peaceful elections.

Generating support for Modernization

Under the Philippine experience, generating the best scenario for obtaining a state-of-the-art, highly functional and efficient election management system is close to impossible.

The preference of 99% of Philippine politicians is to cheat their way into public office with the help of private sector supporters as well as a motley of interest groups that have influence, firepower and money. As a classic example, to win as a town mayor with no ability to read nor write, as an illiterate it will be difficult to win over the voting population in one's town. Thus one has to resort to irregular acts to win in the election.

Another case is to sustain one's firm grip on criminal businesses and thus one must attain to political power to keep the stranglehold on the people in one's locale. The crime boss will use all illegal means to get elected to a political post in his locale and be able to make his criminal enterprise survive and thrive.

These cases are common in the Philippines, as much as one can see the same in countries like those in Asia, Latin America, Africa, even advanced societies like the US, Europe and others.

On the other hand, there is little much of a difference in regard to appointive positions in the Philippine bureaucracy from director level up - posts that mostly are paid for in handsome numbers of reasons.

If the conditions for putting in place a truly effective and modern election management system is impossible, elections in the Philippines will continue to be characterized by manipulation, cheating, fraud, voter disenfranchisement, employment of guns, goons and gold. The Philippines will continue to be led by politicians with no discernible right to occupy positions of import, very little qualifications to make them competent to maintain those positions.

If ever there is hope in changing the landscape of Philippine elections, it will be due to the revamp of the corrupt culture that restricts change from taking place.

The Philippines' electoral reforms will not certainly take place in the election agency and among the workers for political campaigns. It will need to be imposed by the people, by interest groups, by the vital stakeholders of Philippine society upon the public sector, the politicians and future candidates to elective posts.

If modernization happens in the Philippines, it is possible to install a president such as the former Asian lawyer who came from extremely poor circumstances and made it to the Presidency in his home country hands down.

Such as there is now an anti-pork barrel fund campaign in the Philippines, an intense and more powerful campaign should emerge to eradicate the practice of allowing the entry of non-qualified persons into the race for political positions. The same campaign will be able to generate the momentum for election management systems modernization.

Among some of the measures to make this possible are:

• imposing a battery of qualifying national examinations or evaluation procedures for potential political candidates
• strictly controlled physical examinations for detection of substance abuse and to determine the candidate's physical condition
• comprehensive background investigation
• conduct of test for mental and psychological competence to occupy the political position
• full declaration of financial resources to be used for the political campaign
• government subsidy for political campaign of all candidates

Communications

The greatest key to modernized elections is science and technology. With advanced science and technology, the electoral process could be made more transparent. The possibility for fraud, cheating, vote padding, among other irregular and illegal election practices will totally be eliminated. Or almost.

A corporation known to be based in Canada and the USA as well as several other similar companies have the capability to deliver clean, honest and fast election canvassing, in the same manner that the US conducts and completes its own elections then delivers the final winning results over only a matter of hours.

The same companies, in cooperation with media and survey companies, among others, are able to convey to the public day-to-day candidate rankings during the electoral campaign period. In a country such as the United States that has a population of more than 313,000,000, with a voting universe of nearly 200,000,000, the conduct of fast and reliable surveys on a daily basis and delivering the results in just a matter of hours, the effort will appear to be gargantuan if one is aware of how, mostly corrupt survey companies operate in a Third World country.

Countries like Taiwan, even South Korea at the beginning of its quest to become a tiger economy, have supported their constituents by providing subsidy to communications.

In the Philippines, communication is a milking cow for both the private sector and the corrupt government. Science and Technology is not hot in the minds of politicians. A large number of them do not even know what it means, or how to spell it correctly. For this reason, the people of this country will never benefit from government subsidy, extra support for communications. For this reason as well, even government agencies that have the mandate to modernize Philipine elections, will have a difficult time making the dream of a truly modernized electoral system come true.

And so, the corrupt electoral process will continue to flourish and this country will keep on electing the wrong officials to the wrong positions and development will not happen because we will be sinking deeper into the quagmire.