Corazon Aquino
President of the Philippines, 1986–1992
I held out for participation in the 1984 election the dictatorship called, even if I knew it would be rigged. I was warned by the lawyers of the opposition that I ran the grave risk of legitimizing the forgone results of elections that were clearly going to be fraudulent. But I was not fighting for lawyers, but for the people in whose intelligence I had implicit faith. By the exercise of democracy, even in a dictatorship, they would be prepared for democracy when it came.