Breakout

The presidential campaign is beginning to resemble a marathon or a long bout of arm wrestling. It is a test of endurance as much as it is a test of strategy.

The latest SWS survey shows the two frontrunners in dead heat. Actor Fernando Poe Jr. registered a 32.0 percent voter preference rating while incumbent President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo polled 31.4 percent. The 0.6 percent margin is statistically insignificant given that the survey instrument has a 2.2 percent margin of error.

This statistical tie was met with relief by the President’s camp. The survey covered a critical period where the Supreme Court’s dismissal of the citizenship case against Fernando Poe Jr. was expected to give him a spike in his preference ratings. During this same period, a slew of court harassment filed against the President – which were propaganda bombs in actuality, intending to shake her voting base – was expected to momentarily push down her ratings.

From the point of view of Gloria’s headquarters, the statistical tie registered by the SWS survey is good news. It indicates the stability of the President’s voting base midway into the campaign.

A statistical tie at mid-campaign is the most realistic outcome as far as the K4’s strategy is concerned. It is an impressive outcome by itself, considering that the President started off at fourth place in the voter preference rating.

In the first half of the campaign, K4 concentrated on attracting the pro-Roco voters back to the fold and on consolidating the local candidates of the coalition to support the national ticket. At midpoint, the Roco effort has clearly been marginalized and Gloria has established her candidacy as the mainstream of modernizing forces in Philippine society.

Through the second half of the campaign, K4 can now focus on breaking up the voting base of FPJ. The three other contenders for the presidency may now be pleasantly ignored.

This will allow for a more tightly focused campaign effort directed at E voters, the lowest income group, where FPJ continues to hold sway. Expect a visible shift in the tone and targeting of the K4 campaign after the Holy Week break.

Such a tightly focused campaign effort will require close coordination with the local candidates of the K4. It will rely on the overwhelming advantage the K4 enjoys in terms of local candidate presence.

The numbers indicate this overwhelming advantage.

Because members of the K4 coalition are running against each other in many places, the pro-Gloria K4 more than 100 percent local candidate coverage. In all the congressional districts, K4 has 101 percent candidate presence compared to KNP’s 12 percent. For gubernatorial posts, K4 has 106 percent presence compared to KNP’s 10 percent. For the post of mayor in 119 cities, K4 has 105 percent candidate presence compared to KNP’s 21 percent. For the post of municipal mayor, K4 has 108 percent candidate presence compared to KNP’s 6 percent.

In no other presidential contest has the statistics on local candidate presence been so lopsided. Notwithstanding, K4 continues to woo the local candidates of the weaker presidential candidates.

This is the reason why a statistical tie is bad news for the FPJ camp. The K4’s overwhelming advantage in local candidate presence will give PGMA’s campaign a strong finishing kick in the closing stages of this contest.

Using previous elections as a guide, superiority in local candidate presence should provide the main national candidates a low of 2 percent and a high of 13 percent additional votes in the closing week of the campaign. As local candidates organize party workers and poll watchers in the millions, mainly from E-income voters, they should be able to deliver an significantly large additional party vote for the incumbent.

Given that PGMA leads among the ABC voters and is weakest among the E voters, the party vote will be decisive since this will be based largely on lower income party workers.

Given that FPJ’s strength lies largely among E voters, his campaign will be particularly vulnerable to the onslaught of "machine" politics. As the local electoral campaigns gain intensity, the KNP, with its severe inferiority in candidate presence, would have great difficulty holding on to their voting base.

Facile analysis often compares the FPJ and the 1998 Erap campaigns, both being celebrity-driven. But there are major differences.

Erap prepared for his presidential bid for six years. He had cornered all the major provincial "command vote" personalities (nearly all of whom are now with PGMA). He had a candidate presence ratio that compared favorably with that of the then ruling Lakas. He had a robust war chest, financed by major business interests anxious to win contracts and cut deals with a candidate who was virtually a shoo-in for the presidency. Many of these "electoral investors" failed to recover their investments when Erap’s presidential term was shortened by impeachment.

Too, the 1998 Erap campaign attracted some of the most competent electoral operators and strategists. By comparison, the FPJ campaign, apart from laboring under the comparison with the fialed Erap presidency, is manned by mediocre strategists and a meager war chest that, if rumors are true, is being looted by the actor’s own supporters.

Too, Erap was an engaging personality who dealt with the media well. FPJ, by contrast, is a temperamental and inarticulate prima donna.

Under pressure from a more focused K4 campaign, the KNP has shown serious cracks. Campaign spokesman Rod Reyes has been consigned to purgatory. The PMP faction led by Horacio Morales is openly at odds with the "ASO" faction of the LDP. Neither faction controls the war chest, this being in the hands of Poe’s politically inexperienced siblings.

Already, the FPJPM Saranggani chapter and the FPJM Cebu chapter have broken away from the KNP – and switched to the K4. Information from the political underground indicates more desertions from the mass organizations once supportive of the FPJ bid. These mass organizations are disillusioned by the perception that FPJ has become a prisoner of the traditional politicians who now contain him.

Disappointed by the chaos and infighting at KNP headquarters, several of Poe’s senatorial candidates have effectively broken away and are now campaigning on their own – with very little party support to bank on.

Few are betting that FPJ has what it takes to hold his campaign together, not to mention hold himself together, to make it to May 10.As the cracks begin to show, the funding will slow down to a trickle too. It is indicative of this growing despair that some of the KNP supporters are spreading the rumor – to hold their troops in line – that Panfilo Lacson will withdraw on April 19 to favor Poe’s candidacy.

If the FPJ campaign fails to hold together, a breakout from the current deadlock might happen sooner than anticipated.