It’s Ben and Tim

By AGNES E. DONATO and JOHN RAVELO
Reporter

The Covenant Party team of Benigno R. Fitial and Timothy Villagomez claimed victory yesterday, with the 1,227 counted absentee votes making little changes in the final tally of this close gubernatorial race.

The House speaker and vice speaker team picked up 312 overseas votes. They finished with 3,809—or 28.07 percent—of the total votes.

Representatives Heinz Hofschneider and David Apatang followed closely with 3,710 or 27.34 percent of the total votes. The independent team got the nod of 339 absentee voters.

Gov. Juan N. Babauta and Lt. Gov. Diego T. Benavente received 382 absentee votes, the greatest number of overseas votes in the gubernatorial contest. But it was simply not enough to catch up with Fitial’s or Hofschneider’s votes.

The Republican incumbents finished with 3,610 votes, or 26.6 percent. They were behind the Fitial-Villagomez tandem by 199 votes and behind the Hofschneider-Apatang team by 100 votes.

Democratic Party candidates Froilan C. Tenorio and Antonio A. Santos, who had conceded to opponents days after the election, picked up 186 absentee votes. This brought the Democrats’ total votes to 2442, or 17.99 percent.

‘THE ECONOMY IS THE AGENDA’

For Fitial and Villagomez, the long wait is finally over.

“It’s a very, very sweet victory. I thank all the people for supporting me and Tim and the Covenant Party for coming through with their support,” Fitial said. “Most of all, I want to thank God.”

Scores of supporters broke into tears and hugged Fitial and Villagomez, who were glued to a television set for several hours, watching the live coverage on the Commonwealth Election Commission’s tabulation of absentee ballots.

Over a hundred Covenant supporters gathered at the Kagman residence of party chair Vicente Manglona, where a television set featuring the CEC tabulation was connected to loud speakers.

Supporters cheered when the CEC completed the counting of absentee votes at around 6:25pm. The skies drizzled at the Covenant camp before CEC executive director Gregorio Sablan announced the results of the absentee votes.

Everyone at the Covenant camp turned silent as Sablan read the votes for the tandems of Froilan Tenorio and Antonio Santos, who earlier conceded in the gubernatorial race, and Babauta-Benavente, who topped the absentee voting with 382 votes.

Jubilant cheers broke the silence when Sablan announced the votes for Fitial-Villagomez’s closest rival tandem, Hofschneider-Santos, who got only 339 votes. There was euphoria at the Covenant camp as the CEC announced Fitial-Villagomez’s 312 votes.

Fitial, who was wearing a green floral polo shirt and pants, the Covenant’s signature color, received a barrage of congratulatory calls shortly after the CEC’s announcement of votes in the gubernatorial race.

FITIAL PROMISES FOCUS ON ECONOMY

“We have an agenda—that is the economy. We will focus on that agenda,” Fitial said in a brief interview, adding that a vibrant economy entails the provision of better education and public services to the Commonwealth people.

Fitial said he would task Villagomez next week to form a transition committee that will come up with a transition plan for his incoming administration’s takeover of the CNMI government.

When asked about the first thing he would do as governor, Fitial said: “I’m going to meet with existing business people to ask them to work together with my administration so we can help them continue to do business in the CNMI.”

He also said he would meet with potential investors from Japan, Hong Kong and Korea to invite them to do business in the CNMI.

“We plan to implement the roadways to better times. We have a plan and we will implement that plan.”

‘DON’T BLAME YOURSELVES’

Immediately after the result was known, Babauta spoke to his more than 100 supporters who were gathered at the BB camp in Gualo Rai.

Babauta, who was standing with his father, Santiago Babauta, expressed his full gratitude to the crowd, with most of them sobbing, literally finding strength in each other’s shoulders.

In a sad voice, Babauta told the crowd “not to blame yourselves” over what happened in the election. He said that if there is anyone to blame, it’s “nobody but me.”
He told the crowd that he may have failed to put his message across more clearly to voters, citing his failure to visit as many households as possible.

Babauta was joined by his siblings and other immediate relatives, close friends, and diehard supporters.

Lt. Diego T. Benavente is currently in Palau attending a South Pacific Community conference.

Committee to re-elect BB chair Rufin Inos said they respect the results of the election. “We respect the people’s decision,” he said.

He noted that the Babauta-Benavente tandem received the highest number of votes from absentee voters but it was not just enough to make it to the top. He said GOP “worked hard” in the campaign.

AN AGONIZING WAIT

The Commonwealth Election Commission received 1,378 election returns from absentee voters.

However, 151 of these ballot envelopes were rejected for various reasons: 72 had indecipherable postmarks; 29 were postmarked after the Nov. 5 deadline; 28 had no affidavit included; 16 had no authorization; five were deemed exposed ballots; and one failed to comply with mailing requirements.

The processing of the overseas ballots started at about 1pm yesterday.

Election officials checked each ballot, comparing if the signature of the voter on the application for absentee ballot appeared to be by the same person who completed the affidavit and the registration.

Furthermore, the commissioners also verified if the affidavit included in each ballot was properly completed. They also checked if the ballot envelope within the mailing envelope was sealed and did not appear to have been tampered with.

An “OK” notation was placed on each return envelope that met these requirements and then initialed by at least five commissioners.

Those ballots that did not have the notation were considered rejected and separated from the unspoiled ballots.

The counting of the ballots was not begun even when the ballot processing was completed.

Some ballots were rejected by the counting machine because they were either crumpled or torn. To remedy the problem, election officials had to copy the votes to a fresh ballot so they could be fed into the machine.

Furthermore, some of these ballots were found to have “overvotes”—there were more votes than the available positions in a particular race. The election commissioners again had to look into the overvotes, so that the good votes on the same ballot could be counted. (with Liberty Dones).