Ward 10 saga continues.
Recent events in the Ward 10 election scandal have made me wonder if the government is busily trying to make it go away. After all it involves loyal Tories who are up to their eyeballs in the scandal. We find out that the inspection (which should have been a public inquiry) will end without questioning those directly involved with the voting irregularities. Nothing like a government sweeping voting scandals under the rug to give the place that fresh, sham election feel that you generally only find in countries who's leaders are generally referred to as “strongman” or “maximum leader”. Adding further intrigue to this story is the MLA for the area, the infamous MIA-MLA himself, Hung Pham. In a story on the CBC Calgary's website, Mr. Pham is now claiming that the people who have stated to the police that they didn't ask for ballots were intimidated into saying that. Makes you kind of wonder what kind of shenanigans Mr. Pham's campaign people were up to last election, given that they were the same people who ran Margot Aftergood's campaign.
As a little background, Mr. Pham and Mr. Aftergood have been friends and business partners for years. Now this doesn't mean that Mr. Pham is involved in electoral wrongdoing, but his close friend and associate, Mr. Aftergood is currently charged with offenses under the Municipal Government Elections Act, and under active criminal investigation for his part in the Ward 10 scandal. Mr. Aftergood is also known for running Mr. Pham's re-nomination fiasco, where another candidate ended up successfully suing the Calgary Montrose PC association over the nomination process. Hung Pham eventually won the nomination, but rumors of problems with that process abound as well.
All this makes me feel like I'm living in Ferdinand Marcos' Philippines. For those of you who may not remember, Mr. Marcos was deposed as president of the Philippines after it became clear to the people of the Philippines, and the world as a whole, that Mr. Marcos had won his election through wide spread election fraud. Ballot stuffing, people who didn't vote having voted, the dead having voted were all seen in that election. Pity it's starting to show up in ours.