It?s just a year and change until the 2010 elections, and already our politicians? thoughts are turning to running for office. The opposition is certainly wasting no time, calling for a convention that will come up with a united slate next year.

The proponent of the convention, Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr., admits that coming up with a common candidate is going to be extremely difficult because of the number of people who want to run for president. And Pimentel is just considering the aspirants from his side of the political fence.

Strangely, Pimentel says the number of presidential wannabes from the opposition actually proves the strength of his side. How this squares with his concern that a fractured opposition will actually be at a disadvantage in the next elections, only Pimentel seems to know.

In any case, Pimentel says that right now, the possible presidential candidates from the opposition include the two Senators Manuel, Villar and Roxas, and their Senate colleagues Loren Legarda, Panfilo Lacson and Francis Escudero and Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay. Left out of Pimentel?s list is former President Joseph Estrada, who, at the beginning of the new year declared that he will seek the office himself if the opposition fails to come up with a common candidate by the end of 2009.

Right now, Pimentel is afraid that unless the opposition comes up with a common candidate next year, the administration?s choice could win everything next May. The possibility of that happening would be greater if the administration comes up with only one candidate.

That?s why, according to Pimentel, unity in the opposition is the only viable strategy. ?The failure of the minority to unite will give the administration a tremendous advantage in the presidential race because it is very likely that it will only have one presidential bet,? he says.

But unity among politicians, even among politicians already united against one administration, is like world peace. It?s nice to contemplate and even to work for, but it?s just not going to happen.

It?s difficult to see how the opposition can come up with a single standard-bearer that they can all rally around, as even Pimentel admits. Even in the last presidential elections, when the anti-Arroyo forces were supposed to all be backing the late actor Fernando Poe Jr., Lacson broke ranks and ran on his own? something that loyalists in the Estrada-Binay faction of the opposition that backed Poe will never forgive Lacson for. Now that Binay and even Erap have declared their intentions, and with Villar, Roxas, Legarda and even Escudero also in the running together with Lacson, unity among the ?antis? seems as distant as ever.

But that hasn?t stopped Pimentel from calling for a convention wherein the opposition parties will come up with a formula for choosing a single presidential candidate. Of course, even assuming that all the anti-Arroyo parties get together and come up with such a formula, the odds are nearly overwhelming that the parties whose candidates aren?t chosen will simply ignore the convention?s decision.

Formulas like the one Pimentel is proposing can?t even be made binding on the members of a single party with only two choices, as those who remember the LDP convention that chose the late House Speaker Ramon Mitra in 1992 know only too well. Fidel Ramos, the other LDP candidate, just up and left the LDP to form his own party after the convention picked Mitra, eventually winning one of the closest (and most crowded) presidential elections the following May.

All things considered, perhaps world peace actually stands a better chance of coming to pass compared to opposition unity.

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Among the possible opposition candidates, Estrada seems the most controversial?and potentially the most polarizing, as far as the anti-Arroyo movement is concerned. An Estrada candidacy in 2010 will require no less than a Supreme Court ruling to happen, since it seems to go against the constitutional ban on the reelection of Presidents.

Of course, there is a distinct possibility that the high court may allow Erap to run again. The 1987 Constitution, after all, seems to have instituted the prohibition to stop an incumbent President from seeking consecutive terms?it does not necessarily mean that a former President like Estrada cannot run for the highest office one more time, after another President?s term has expired.

But another Estrada candidacy has the potential of obliterating any hopes of unity for the opposition, especially since Erap?s recent declaration sounded to many like an ultimatum couched in the same call for backing a single candidate in 2010. Like Pimentel, Estrada warns that if the opposition fails to field just one candidate, the administration might win Malaca?ang handily.

Unlike Pimentel, Erap says he will run if unity doesn?t takes place. Given the widespread belief among many in the opposition that Estrada?s time has already come and gone (which meshes quite well with the assumption among the other aspirants that each of them must now step up to the plate), it is doubtful if they will back the former president?s quest.

Of course, another common belief holds that Estrada is merely threatening to run if his son Jinggoy is not chosen as the vice presidential candidate of a common opposition slate. And that Erap will back to the hilt the campaign of the opposition candidate that takes in his son as running mate.

For all that, it would be interesting to see if the efforts to unite the opposition come to anything. At this point, it is not even certain if the administration can come up with a single candidate next May.

All of which should probably lead us back to the conclusion that there are no permanent interests in politics except the self-interest of politicians. And that unity or any other good thing in politics? will? only happen if that is in the interest of those who, this early, seek nothing less than the highest post in the land.