Let’s put it this way. He can’t say he’s not. No one listens to a chief executive who is on his way out. A lame-duck leader will never get things done, and the governor doesn’t want to quack with over a year left in his term.
In any case, why can’t he run? He doesn’t need to win anyway; he just needs to survive the first round. There will be more than three gubernatorial candidates next year, but for the first time in CNMI history, there will be a runoff if no one gets a majority of the votes. The governor, if he’s running, is only aiming for the top two spot on Election Day next year.
Who else is running?
Among the Democrats, Juanpan Guerrero, the campaign manager of the last Democrat to win a gubernatorial election, has been thinking about it since last year. Ditto for Efrain Camacho. Good luck to them, however, if they would run to “protect” or “revive” the CNMI’s Third World economy which is already in its death throes. This economy needs a mortician, not CPR.
Among the Republicans — former Gov. John Babauta, Reps. Diego Benavente and Heinz Hofschneider are running. Because it’s all over politically for the lt. governor his supporters are expected to back Diego, who may fare better than John. The former governor’s other cohorts have already flown, like migratory birds, in search of warmer climes; i.e., “better times.” You know who they are; they’re like vultures that gather near an unpopular governor who is still unaware of his impending political demise.
Heinz, at any rate, is the GOP frontrunner, and for the first time since 2000, there will be a Republican gubernatorial primary. It must be an open primary because that has always been the GOP way since the islands’ first gubernatorial race in 1977. The party got thrashed in 2005 because it failed to respect its own tradition.
The GOP primary may be held in spring or early summer, but this early party members are already acknowledging that there will be no post-primary unity — the losing camps are expected to defect to the other non-Republican candidates.
Some also believe that a political party can no longer guarantee victory in the polls as the 2005 and 2008 elections have shown. They admire Kilili’s successful campaign which was based on Politics 101 — addition, or the ability to reach out to various sectors and create an unlikely coalition.
If the governor is running again, he will have to do a lot of things starting next year, and I believe he is already setting the stage for his candidacy. Expect a flurry of new construction projects, the release of tax refunds and the sudden availability of funds for the hiring of new personnel. But he will also need a credible running mate — someone willing to gamble his or her political career on a doomed enterprise.
What do the candidates have to offer an increasingly weary and cynical electorate? What can still be promised to voters who have heard it all?
As most of the voters are government employees, job security and retirement benefits will be the main issue next year. Everyone has already given up on this economy. And those who are asking themselves if the CNMI has already hit bottom will finally get a glimpse of it when the feds announce the implementing regs of the federalization law, which may finally convince most of the remaining businesses in the CNMI to pack up and leave.
Perhaps the Fitial administration could have helped reduce federalization’s impact, but the governor prefers an all or nothing approach. It has to be his way or no way.
He opposed the minimum wage hike. When it was implemented anyway, he said he’s not really opposed to it, that he supports it in theory, but it’s still a bad idea, and the feds should at least suspend the succeeding rate increases.
He opposed the federalization of local immigration, but when it became law he said he’s not really opposed to a federalized border security system, but the feds should suspend its implementation.
That’s how the governor “compromises.” He “agrees” while saying no.
Worst has come to worst under this administration and misery is across the board. Under the governor’s watch, the CNMI lost control over its minimum wage and immigration policies and is about to see the waters surrounding its three northernmost islands federalized, too. This is the administration of blackouts, emergency declarations, sole-source contracts, austerity measures that punished only low salary employees and a labor law that made life more difficult for the already struggling businesses, destroying jobs that the governor promised will go to locals. The Retirement Fund, moreover, is close to insolvency; CPA, too. CUC is clinging to dear life.
The lt. governor, the former commerce secretary and the former CUC executive director — the governor’s former close allies — have been indicted for corruption.
And despite all this, the governor wants you to give him four more years.
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