THE transition from a Donald Trump to a Joe Biden presidency has begun but it does not mean that the controversy that attended the most bitterly, at times bizarrely, fought US presidential election is over.
For one, the election results in majority of the states have not been certified yet although that may come in due course notwithstanding the Trump campaign’s various legal maneuvers. The bigger problem lies in the incumbent president’s refusal to concede defeat.
What is happening in the US reminds us of our own vice presidential election in 2016. Like Trump, Bongbong Marcos has refused to acknowledge that he lost (to Leni Robredo) and is instead continuing to vigorously pursue his four-year-old election protest.
In fact, so many parallels can be drawn between the Trump and the Marcos experiences. One is that their opponents are now installed or will soon be installed in office. Beginning January 20 next year, Trump will be the outsider looking in that Marcos currently is.
Another is that both were leading by huge margins in the initial count but eventually lost steam as more votes were reported. Trump thought that he had the electoral votes of the battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin sewed up but woke up the following morning with his lead dwindling and then totally gone.
That was the same lament of Marcos. When he went to sleep on the night of the election, he was comfortably ahead, only to find out the following day that Robredo has inched dangerously close, eventually grabbing the lead and never giving it up.
In the US, it was explained that Trump’s huge lead in the early hours of the count was due to the fact that the votes that were counted first came from the rural areas which were his base but his advantage was quickly neutralized when mail in ballots and those coming from the big cities were tallied.
A similar explanation was given in the case of Marcos. The first certificates that were canvassed came from his known bailiwicks which was why he led convincingly during the first few hours of the canvass. However, his lead vanished when the votes from other, pro-Robredo, provinces were recorded.
Trump, of course, is not buying the claim and neither is Marcos. They believe that they have been cheated. The US president’s lawyers have filed many cases in the battleground states that Biden won but lost all but one of them. The score, according to news reports, is 32 losses against only one win and some of Trump’s allies have publicly expressed doubt that his maneuvers could overturn the results.
Marcos is still awaiting the result of his protest. The recount of votes from the pilot provinces that he chose has not improved his chances, according to reports, and he is now banking on the setting aside of the election results in Maguindanao to boost his claim for the vice presidency.
The US and the Philippines, Marcos and Trump. Different countries, different people. But human nature is still exactly the same.