Manila - Arab Today
Ferdinand Marcos’s son threatened legal action Saturday to reverse his narrow defeat in recent Philippine elections, which analysts said had been the family of the late dictator’s best chance to regain the presidency.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr., a sitting senator, had aimed for the family’s biggest political victory since its humiliating downfall in 1986 after a “People Power” uprising ended 20 years of the family’s rule.
An official canvass showed Friday that Marcos, 58, lost the vice presidential contest to neophyte rival Leni Robredo by just over 263,000 votes.
Marcos insisted Saturday he was potentially deprived of nearly four million votes through cheating and malfunctioning vote-counting machines, and was gathering evidence for a potential “election protest.”
“The search for Senator Marcos’s missing votes did not end with the canvassing,” his lawyer George Garcia said in a statement Saturday.
Any legal action would be made only after Robredo is proclaimed the official winner, Garcia added.
The Marcos family had targeted the vice presidential post as a route back to the Malacanang palace through a subsequent presidential run for the son in 2022.
Source : Arab News