Editorial:
Rampant violence and cheating mark recently concluded elections

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

The recently concluded polls will go down as one of the bloodiest and most fraud-ridden elections in the history of the puppet republic. The filth and violence of the 2004 polls demonstrate anew that reactionary elections can never become a democratic means of installing leaders that genuinely represent the people's interests.

Even before the election, the Arroyo regime had already perpetrated rampant fraud when it used government funds and resources for its campaign. A variety of dirty tactics were also employed to nullify the candidacy or put in doubt the status of Arroyo's principal rivals for the presidency.

In addition, reactionaries led by National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales, the military, police and other ultra-Rightist elements launched a systematic campaign of terror, murder and slander against progressive parties and candidates.

Consequently, out of over 140 people killed and a still undetermined number victimized through harassment and other election-related human rights violations, almost a third were members of Bayan Muna (BM) and other progressive parties.

On the eve of the election, the same means of fraud and manipulation directed at Arroyo's rivals for the presidency were likewise used against the progressives.

The military brazenly spread black propaganda against progressive parties and candidates and intervened in the conduct of elections in the progressives' bailiwicks in Northern Luzon, Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog, Bicol, the Visayas and many areas in Mindanao. On election day itself, the AFP blocked votes for progressives and Arroyo's rivals. They prevented voters from reaching their precincts, dictated whom to vote for, "counted" votes inside military camps and implemented "dagdag-bawas" (vote-shaving) and other means of fraud to shift votes for progressives to parties supported by the Arroyo regime such as Akbayan, ANAD, Aksyon Sambayanan and Alab Katipunan.

Immediately after the election, rabidly reactionary candidates and their collaborators among COMELEC officials and the military maneuvered to try to have the poll canvass results favor them. They snatched and burned ballots in precincts and municipalities

It is the people's right to cry out their indignation against the violence and fraud that marked the election and to expose the polls' futility. Progressive parties and candidates may unite with other candidates and forces who were likewise victimized by fraud and violence, and arouse and mobilize the broad masses of the people to denounce the cheating regime, strip it of any pretensions of having been legitimately elected, and prevent it from using its supposed mandate from the recently concluded polls to resume its antipeople policies.

These issues may be linked to the people's worsening socio-economic problems which have resulted in widespread revulsion for the regime.

These developments bring to the fore the fact that genuine democracy and meaningful change cannot be fashioned through hollow electoral processes. They are forged by the people's militant actions in streets, factories, schools, communities and villages. They acquire form and substance through the revolutionary movement raging in the broad countryside and in various parts of the archipelago, that slowly erodes reactionary power and establishes organs of genuine people's democratic power. The correctness of armed struggle as the principal means of attaining basic social change becomes ever clearer.

21 May 2004
English Edition

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