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Mon Casiple on Lakas-CMD unravelling

What do these things have in common? Snap elections, Lakas-Kampi senatorial slate, JDV hesitant NBN-ZTE “testimony,” and Bayani Fernando’s claim to ruling coalition presidential candidacy. They are all coming from the ruling coalition and reflect the anxiety of having no viable presidentiable yet for the 2010 elections.

The ruling coalition is torn between arranging yet another scenario to keep the power with GMA and the increasing likelihood of scrambling for another presidential candidate. With neither in sight, it is vulnerable to party-raiding by pirates in the person of presidentiables. It is in danger, in fact, of being relegated to a bystander helplessly watching on the side as its local power-brokers play the field of the presidentiables.

In the absence of a unifying presidentiable (in the clear absence of a genuine party), the ruling coalition has embarked on a process to produce such a presidentiable and senatoriables, hoping that the process itself will be enough to maintain unity and cohesion. It hopes that it may even produce such a presidential candidate.

However, the events themselves exposed the festering internal rivalries within the ruling coalition. Pro-GMA people still hope that the proposed senate slate will maintain the shaky Lakas-Kampi unity. Pro-JDV people threatens a non-GMA ruling coalition. You can be sure that coalition members with presidential or senatorial ambitions will try to get the coalition endorsement.

Waiting in the wings are the serious presidential candidates (or those with serious chances of winning). They know that in the end they will be the beneficiaries of the Lakas-Kampi process. The gambit, for them, has a predetermined end.

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