Thursday, March 24, 2016

May 2016 Presidential elections---the one with the party machinery wins

The surveys are showing a very clear trend

1. Grace Poe can only muster a high of 25% of the votes
2. Binay’s take hovers between 22 to 26% of the votes
3. Roxas has consistently proven an ability to get at least 20% of the votes
4. Santiago has managed to get 4-5% of the votes
5. Duterte’s numbers can be as low as 20% and as high as 30%

What do these numbers tell us?

1. Poe’s ratings have peaked. The fact is, in the latest survey, her numbers got cut by two percentage points shortly after the Supreme Court released its decision allowing her to run. This shows how limited her reach is and voters are beginning to re-think their decision supporting her. As correctly predicted by this space, the minute Poe over exposes herself, the more voters shift their support from her to another candidate. Expect her ratings to go South further more as the elections near D-Day.
2. Voters who change their positions either go to Binay or Duterte, never to Mar Roxas. However interestingly, voters who shift away from Binay go to Duterte.
3. Mar has consistently shown to have a 20% share of the voters. This is enough for him, if his handlers and election strategists are to be asked.  In an 80% actual voter turnout from 54 million voters, the actual number of voters will peak at 43.4 million. Since Comelec has said that these new machines would probably result to 2-3 million spoiled ballots, the actual number of voters whom these candidates would try to convince stands at 40 million.
a. Twenty percent (20%%) of 40 million is 8 million, very near the claim of Malacanan of the actual number of PPP beneficiaries believed to have committed themselves to vote for the administration candidate.
b. With a strong party machinery, it is entirely possible for Mar to win at the end game with a vote of 10-11 million. Malacanan could justify the cheatng by telling the public that Mar has the machinery that defeated the other bets. The question now remains--in the event that the LP does cheat--will the Poe camp rise up against the LP and condemn the cheating?
4. Here’s the thing---Duterte has surely proved himself as the “wild card” in this elections. For one, there is no record of him having a solid national base before this campaign, hence, we only need to rely on these surveys. What we know so far is that he is surging, and that surge is still undeterminable, meaning, the surge can reach a high of 30% or even equal that of Poe’s and Binay’s at 25%

Duterte must create, build and sustain a nationwide vote protection machinery in order to win. This means huge costs. The question now is:

a. Does Duterte have enough funds to cover the expenses of his voter protection machinery?
b. Does Duterte's camp have the management skills to effectively run this party machine?
c. Does Duterte's camp have enough political forces at his disposal in case he is cheated?

What could probably be the expected outcome this May?

1. It will all boil down to one important variable—machinery. The one with the most expansive and the most organized party machinery wins this election.
2. Since there is no clear overwhelming voter favorite, even the final day could prove to be crucial to every candidate. Meaning, if someone executes a propaganda against another bet, and that propaganda sticks to the public consciousness, the possibility of a tilt towards another, is big.
3. Don’t be misled into thinking that those huge crowds are already enough to say that this or that candidate is the big winner.  Those crowds are for financiers. It is still a question if a candidate can translate those crowds into votes. Those crowds may mean that many people do not know the candidate and are willing to go to those rallies to see how the hell this candidate is. This does not mean that voters will vote for him.

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