International observers: Elections 'neither fair nor honest'

From Business Mirror

AN international team that monitored the first automated electoral exercise in different parts of the country has concluded, among others, that the May 10 elections was “neither fair nor honest.”

The 11-country International Observers’ Mission (IOM), in a report furnished to Sen. Francis Escudero as cochairman of the Congressional Oversight Committee on Automated Elections, noted that “widespread intimidation, vote-buying, corruption and violence showed that automation could solve only part of the problem.”

“In focusing on the machines, the Comelec lost the people,” the Mission report stated. “The elections were not peaceful or violence-free. Neither were the elections fair nor honest.”

Escudero, however, refrained from agreeing with any sweeping conclusion until after the congressional committee completes its data gathering for a comprehensive report.

His counterpart in the House of Representatives, Makati Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr., is in fact opening today, Wednesday, hearings into alleged manipulation of the polls in certain areas, as mandated by Speaker Prospero Nograles.

Locsin is convening the hearings in his capacity as chairman of the House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms.

From: http://ping.fm/vK5Qn