Nationwide at-large
(lost) Nationwide at-large 12 12 8,764,190 13,266,643 Start date November 13, 1951 | 18 4 6 8 39.9% 59.1% | |
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Winner Quintín Paredes | ||
A senatorial election was held in the Philippines on November 13, 1951. The election was known as a midterm election as the date when elected candidates take office falls halfway through President Elpidio Quirino's four-year term.
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Summary
As the Hukbalahap insurgency raged in Central Luzon, Filipinos trooped to the polling booths for the 1951 midterm elections—a referendum on President Quirino, who had won the presidency in his own right two years prior. Despite the political remarriage of the two factions of the Liberal Party, the Quirinistas and Avelinistas, the Quirino administration was still far from popular and had gained notoriety for its inability to rein in corruption and its ineffectual attempts to police lawlessness in the countryside. The Nacionalistas took advantage of the situation and mounted an active campaign to wrest back the Senate from the LP. Led by former President Jose P. Laurel, Quirino’s chief adversary in the 1949 presidential polls, the NP swept all eight Senate seats in contention, the first total victory of the opposition in the Senate. So strong was the rejection of the Quirino administration in 1951 that even LP top honcho, Senate President Mariano Jesus Cuenco, lost his seat. Laurel received the highest number of votes, which was seen as his political rehabilitation and which made him the first and only president, thus far, to have served in the Senate after his presidency.
Felisberto Verano, also a Nacionalista, won the special elections held on the same day to fill the Senate seat vacated by Vice-President Fernando Lopez.
Block voting, established in 1941, was abolished in 1951 with Republic Act No. 599. This would later lead to more fragmented results in most national elections.
Special election
To serve the unexpired term of Fernando Lopez until December 30, 1953.