What are the prospects for stability with congressional elections due later this month?
Thats a tricky one, because some people say that what she did now was all she could have done to maintain stability, but others think she’s gone too far because her own legitimacy was dicey in the first place, and going around arresting her political opponents on the eve of an election doesn’t bode well for democracy in the Philippines. There is speculation that the election may be postponed. Arroyo has been counting on turning the economy around with more foreign investment, pitching the Philippines as less corrupt and more stable now that she’s the president. But what weve seen this week is that this is a very deeply polarized society, and it’s going to be harder to sell it as stable when she’s forced declare de facto martial law and lock up her opponents.
