‘Babauta needs a miracle’

Admitting a tough electoral fight, top Babauta administration aides said that their ticket, Gov. Juan N. Babauta and Lt. Gov. Diego T. Benavente, needs a miracle to win this year’s elections.

“If they win, then it’s by divine intervention,” said a ranking member of the Babauta Cabinet, who understandably spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Another close aide of Babauta, on a separate occasion, echoed the same sentiment, saying that a Babauta-Benavente win at this point can only be had only through “God’s mercy.”

Early on, a long-time Babauta aide commented, “We can hope, yes, but we also need to be realistic.”

A Republican Party insider noted that “for every vote received by top opponents [House Speaker Benigno Fitial and Rep. Heinz Hofschneider], Babauta needs to get three votes more.”

“It’s very tough,” said the party source.

Press Secretary Pete A. Callaghan declined to make any predictions on the results of today’s tabulation of absentee ballots, saying, “It is hard to speculate because we don’t know how many votes were returned.”

“I think we’ll just wait for the results,” he said.

The final result of the gubernatorial election will finally be known later today. The Election Commission will tabulate the absentee ballots after lunch at the Multi-Purpose Center in Susupe.

Excluding the absentee ballots, Babauta ranks third in the four-way race, with 3,228 votes or 269 votes shy of Fitial’s 3,497, and 143 votes less than Hofschneider’s 3,371. Democratic Party’s Froilan C. Tenorio, who has conceded to his rivals, has 2,256 votes.

There were 1,602 ballots sent out to off-island voters. As of yesterday, the commission would not disclose how many of them have arrived, saying the number would only be known today.

Some government officials said that the CNMI normally gets a 60 percent turnout in absentee votes. The poll body would not confirm this on Friday, saying it has not checked the trend in the past elections.

In the 2001 general elections, there were reportedly over 1,000 absentee voters, but only a little over 600 votes were counted.

Authorities said that Babauta, who won the 2001 gubernatorial election by a landslide of over 5,000 votes, garnered 50 percent of the absentee votes. His then closest opponent, Fitial, only received a total of over 3,000 votes.

In an earlier interview, Babauta said that he remains hopeful that he would get a good number of votes from overseas.

“I think [we] have a good chance,” said Babauta, about three days after the Nov. 5 general elections.