Although denied accreditation as a citizens arm by the Commission on Elections, the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) today expressed serious concerns as the countdown to the May 10 elections is down to less than 60 days.
In a statement issued today, NAMFREL enumerated a long list of issues and problems that the country needs to confront to ensure free and fair automated polls on May 10, 2010.
“Every Filipino would like to believe Comelec will deliver an honest and credible election but there is a growing feeling of mistrust among the public which has fueled a great deal of speculation that the elections will fail, seriously derailing the development of a mature democracy for the Philippines,” said the NAMFREL statement.
On the automated election system (AES), NAMFREL noted that “Comelec extend(s) tremendous leniency to Smartmatic not only in terms of front loaded payments and fees but accommodating major changes to the contract that sometimes cross the boundaries of what is legal.”
The group also said that “deadlines are not being enforced and the required levels of accuracy have not been attained in any of its pilot tests”.
Other AES-related concerns of NAMFREL include those on the source code review, preparation for random manual audit, cleansing of the voters’ list, transmission issues, server availability and transparency, congestion and queuing problems, printing of ballots and deployment of AES machines.
This year is the first time NAMFREL is participating in the elections sans official sanction by the Comelec. The Comelec accredited NAMFREL as its citizens’ arm in 21 national and local elections since 1984. It figured prominently in exposing and thwarting the acts of electoral fraud committed by President Ferdinand Marcos in the 1986 “snap elections” against then opposition candidate Corazon Aquino.
Despite its non-accreditation, NAMFREL in cooperation with the National Secretariat for Social Action (NASSA) of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) would still conduct its Bantay ng Bayan operations before, during and after Election Day.
Below is the full statement of NAMFREL: