Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Election part II


So the election is over and it looks like front-runner 'Noynoy' is the winner.

Coming in second was Jose Estrada, the tough-guy actor who was president during the late 1990s and is generally considered to have been a disaster for the country. I guess you can fool some of the people all of the time.

Elsewhere, reports of harassment, violence and vote-buying were rampant. Apparently in some places votes were going for as little as 100 pesos (about $2.20) each.

Like Argentina, the Philippines has a no-liquor-sales-the-day-before-the-elections law, which is unusual considering that, unlike Argentina, voting is not mandatory in the Philippines. I thought this wouldn't affetc me until the cashier at the grocery store wouldn't let me buy a root beer ("It says 'beer' right on the label!"). Isn't democracy great?

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