RP vote was flawed but credible, says Arroyo

RP vote was flawed but credible, says Arroyo

Mynardo Macaraig, Agence France-Presse/Manila

Philippines President Gloria Arroyo on Thursday conceded there
were flaws in this week's elections she is projected to win, but
said the problems were isolated and warned the opposition against
stirring up trouble.

Reacting to criticism by international observers on the level
of violence in the campaign that claimed more than 100 lives,
Arroyo said the bloodshed was "relatively isolated and has not
affected the generally peaceful and credible character of the
polls."

She acknowledged there were problems in Monday's vote, which
exit polls predict she would win by a comfortable margin of three
million votes over main rival and movie-star Fernando Poe.

"It is sad to note that many of our people and their
leaders ... have engaged in the use of force to get their way,"
she said in a statement.

Arroyo also called for modernization of the electoral process
to speed up the count "and remove the tensions that contribute to
problems of peace and order."

Poe and other opposition candidates have charged that they had
been cheated in the elections and that the government was using
the media and unofficial surveys and vote counts to put out
misleading results to make it look like Arroyo was already the
winner.

Results of the manual vote count are expected to take weeks
but an exit poll by the independent Social Weather Stations group
predicted Arroyo would win 41 percent of the vote compared with
32 percent for Poe.

Arroyo spokesman Ignacio Bunye denied the government was
trying to convince the public Arroyo had already beaten Poe,
telling reporters, "nobody's saying anybody has won."

A government sanctioned "quick count" by the independent
watchdog body, the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections,
said that as of 0100 GMT (8 a.m. in Jakarta) on Wednesday, with
less than 6 percent of the votes counted, Poe was slightly ahead
with 692,499 votes to Arroyo's 675,439 votes.

Opposition leaders say their followers are gathering
affidavits from people who were not allowed to vote, to be used
in filing election protests.

Deposed president Joseph Estrada, who had backed Poe, urged
opposition supporters to take to the streets.

"They're stealing the victory from FPJ (Poe's initials). It's
about time that people held protests in the streets to denounce
massive cheating," he said.

Estrada, a former movie star, is in detention on corruption
charges after being deposed by a military-backed uprising in
January 2001 that allowed then-vice-president Arroyo to take the
presidency.

Thousands of Poe supporters massed in Manila's financial
district on Tuesday to denounce alleged cheating but the protest
ended peacefully.

Bunye said Manila would exercise "maximum tolerance against
protest actions," but also warned the government would "apply the
full force of the law against those who undermine our electoral
processes or the political order."

Even before the vote count is completed, Arroyo announced she
would meet with her cabinet on Friday to discuss how to implement
the campaign promises she made before the election.

"It is obviously to condition the public that she is winning
but we have to wait for the result," said opposition spokesman
Rodolfo Reyes.

Monday's presidential, legislative and local elections have
been marred by numerous complaints that many people were left off
the voters' list or could not find their voting precincts.

There have also been scattered reports of violence during the
campaign. The military released figures Thursday showing 141
people were killed and 192 wounded in election-related violence
since December, mostly by communist insurgents and private armed
gangs of political warlords.

Mary Carol Jennings, an American election observer, condemned
"the cheating ... the armed men using intimidation (and) the
laxity with which the national and local (Commission on
Elections) officials handle such an important national function."