MAYOR EVELIO LEONARDIA who lost his reelection on May 9 has asked the Comelec to declare “failure of elections” and conduct special polls in Bacolod City.
Leonardia wanted a manual recount of votes when he filed an election protest on May 20 against the winner Alfredo Benitez with the Comelec central office in Manila due to alleged massive vote-buying and the presence of fake voters.
“The complaint was in response to the people’s clamor. The people of Bacolod want to know the truth,” Leonardia’s spokesman Chris Sorongon said in a press briefing at the Planta Hotel on Tuesday, May 24.
Benitez won the mayoralty race with 171,893 votes while Leonardia got 107,447 votes, results which the latter were quoted saying as “mysterious and unbelievable.”
But Benitez brushed off the complaint as “baseless and frivolous” and “another desperate move of one who refuses to accept the truth.”
