GOP to reassess its future

Republican Party chair John S. Reyes said he will stay in his post for some more time to do an assessment and fulfill membership obligations to the national party.

In particular, Reyes said that the party will look at its “future.”

The local GOP lost in this year’s gubernatorial race, with its standard-bearer, Gov. Juan N. Babauta and Lt. Gov. Diego T. Benavente, ranking third in the final election results.

The BB ticket, who won a landslide victory in the 2001 elections with over 5,000 votes, only received 3,610 votes in the Nov. 5 polls.

“We have to sit down and look at the future of Republican Party. We’ll think it over and see where we need to improve,” said Reyes.

He believes that GOP remains “a strong party.”

Many people, including party supporters, believe that the defeat of its lead candidates this year was due to the split of the party, which happened when Rep. Heinz S. Hofschneider formed his own group to launch his own gubernatorial candidacy.

This came after party officials favored earlier this year the re-election bid of the BB team over Hofschneider’s.

Hofschneider, who ran with Rep. David M. Apatang, finished second, receiving 100 more votes than Babauta, or a total of 3,710.

While others blamed party leaders for not holding a primary, other members believed that Hofschneider’s camp should have just allowed the incumbent to seek re-election.

“The tradition is to always give the incumbent the courtesy or the opportunity to decide whether they’re still interested or not. If it happened, GOP leadership should have been maintained,” said a supporter.

Other sources said that if a primary was held, then the BB ticket would lose “because that’s really the plan.”

Babauta allegedly lost the support of big party supporters “affected by his leadership decisions.”

While the party was at this mode, the political landscape was favoring the opposition.

Because of the divided votes, both Republican groups of Babauta and Hofschneider lost, essentially handing the gubernatorial victory to opposition candidate Benigno R. Fitial and Tim P. Villagomez of Covenant Party, who after all originally came from GOP.

The Fitial-Villagomez tandem won by 99 votes or a total of 3,809, reflecting 28 percent of the votes cast.

In the 2001 gubernatorial race, Fitial and his then running mate Rita H. Inos, ranked second with some 3,000 votes.

Meantime, Reyes said that he still has some things to accomplish in connection with the party’s membership to the national committee.

“We have a lot of obligations being a member of the Republican National Committee. We have to attend annual meetings. We have to support campaigns,” he said.

He said the local GOP is expected to be involved in the campaign two years from now for the next U.S. presidential race.

“We need to work with them to elect another Republican president,” said Reyes.