Before the winner is proclaimed, jitters flourish: To the pack leader, what if he stumbles? To the rival, what if he can't overtake before finish line?
Koko Pimentel's margin has been sliced to 500 votes and Mike Zubiri and his campaign chant ("Zubiri! Zubiri! boom, boom, boom") are suddenly within earshot.
In the fight over Cebu's fourth district House seat, the Comelec sees a Benhur Salimbangon win by 308 votes. Still to be confirmed by actual canvassing of Bogo election returns, but the suspense must be killing Benhur and Tining Martinez III and their kin.
Little rest
Even proclamation offers little rest.
Lakambini Reluya of San Fernando, Cebu, declared new mayor on a 40-vote majority, took oath but not without, despite extra police troops, nervously watching out for a violent outburst.
Winner is hounded by tenuous mandate from a shaky lead. He feels he must work harder to appease dissenters.
Loser is assailed with a million regrets and what-might-have-beens, cynical about election protest (which takes just about the same time the protestee needs to finish his term) and dazed about humdrum living (which item to put back into the ref, cat or milk tumbler?).
Yet, the law requires only a majority of one over the rival. Just one vote more than the competitor's vote total.
An odd twist of meaning in "tyranny of numbers." And supreme irony indeed that even an edge of one vote can be fatal.
