Face off

During the general election, our Commonwealth was divided four ways as to who they thought should lead us as governor and lieutenant governor. Every one of the four teams’ supporters gathered at large rallies and smaller pocket meetings of their respective teams to hear what each candidate had to say.

Since then, a failure for either party to secure that 50 percent plus one vote of the electorate has led us into a grueling runoff election cycle pitting the incumbent Republican Party tandem of Inos/Torres against the Independents Hofschneider/Yumul.

The two lowest vote getters (Democrat’s Deleon Guerrero/Quitugua and Independent Babauta/Torres) have since both endorsed Inos/Torres, begging many to wonder, “Why?” Why would the two parties’ candidates tell supporters who clearly voted for new leadership to support the current administration? Why were the people’s call for change all of a sudden silenced? Besides, 54 percent of those who voted for governor did not vote for IT. Last I checked, that’s the majority.

Sure, their endorsements mean something but what it definitely doesn’t mean is that 100 percent of all their supporters will undoubtedly support IT in the runoff. Those voters wanted change and I wouldn’t be surprised if their supporters feel abandoned, if not betrayed.

These voters are free to think for themselves. Endorsements are only encouragements. Voters still have the right to make their own decisions.

It’s uncommon for parties’ supporters, by and large, to regularly attend the rallies and pocket meetings of other parties (unless they’re spies of the incumbent administration scoping out government employees to target for job termination). So, BT supporters know what their guys stand for and the Democrats know what their guys stand for. But I bet they wouldn’t know what the top two parties stand for.

Even the GOP doesn’t know what the H/Y camp stands for! On the CNMI GOP Facebook page, a post called out the H/Y campaign asking why their campaign hasn’t ever released their platform. Well, if the GOP did any kind of research they would know that the platform has always been readily available for view and download on the H/Y camp’s official website. The passive accusation of “What are they hiding?” was definitely a cheap shot.

So, in fairness to those Democratic and BT Independent supporters who only attended their parties’ rallies, as well as the about 3,000 people who didn’t vote, Governor Inos and former speaker Hofschneider must have a forum. And for voters who will not be able be in attendance for it due to limited seating, it should be televised and repeated throughout the date of airing and runoff election day. The Chamber says they are working to contact both parties, which I truly thank them for.

The governor has not engaged the public on a large scale since the runoff campaigns have started. Hofschneider, we can safely assume, is ready to go and has been ready, but has respected the governor’s health not to keep pushing for a forum.

But we, the people, must push. Push the governor to address us: the people. We need to hear his plans from him. We don’t need to hear Ivan Blanco, Ralph Torres or anyone of the highly paid wordsmiths in his campaign. We need to hear him. This is an election that will dictate the course our executive leadership will take in the next four years. If the CNMI GOP won’t take time to look for our platform, how many others do you think haven’t cared to look up any platform?

Rose Yamada
Kagman, Saipan