Playing Into Marcos’ Hands

It can be taken as a given that Ferdinand E. Marcos does not contemplate losing the snap presidential election that he has called for early next year. Through fair means or foul--and a bagful of dirty tricks is at hand to control or nullify the scheduled Feb. 7 vote--Marcos has always intended to perpetuate his 20-year grip on power. Now it appears that the inability of Marcos’ foremost political opponents to agree among themselves could guarantee the achievement of that ambition by surprisingly licit means. There may be no need after all to resort to a rigged vote count or dubious decisions by pliant courts to assure the continuation of Marcos’ misrule.

The last-minute collapse of an electoral agreement between Corazon Aquino and former Sen. Salvador Laurel points ominously to a severe splintering in the anti-Marcos vote that is likely to produce a plurality for the incumbent. Mrs. Aquino, who holds Marcos personally responsible for the 1983 assassination of her husband, Benigno S. Aquino Jr., is a politically inexperienced and reluctant candidate who nonetheless has attracted broad popular support. Laurel, a longtime politician and erstwhile ally of Marcos, controls a formidable political apparatus. After lengthy arguing over how they should combine their forces, agreement finally was reached to put Mrs. Aquino in the top spot. But this week, in a dispute concerning what party name or names this ticket would carry, Laurel decided to seek the presidency on his own.

The most dispiriting consequence of this split is that Marcos now has the opportunity to legitimize his continuation in power. An electoral victory tainted by fraud or legal manipulations would only intensify Marcos’ political and economic problems at home while inviting even stronger condemnation of his rule from abroad. But a victory that can be passed off as having been fairly won would put Marcos in an entirely different position. For even though it was clear that he was a minority president, he could still claim the virtue of being a democratically elected one. Disarray among his opponents is one thing that Marcos is known to have been counting on when he called the snap election. This week’s events have not left him disappointed.