Senator Imee Marcos recently dropped out of the senatorial slate of her brother, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., citing her inability to campaign alongside the rest of the Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas. Campaign strategists say they were not surprised by the lawmaker’s decision.

Alan German, a political campaign strategist, said it did not surprise him that the lady senator abandoned the pro-administration coalition of her brother.

“For quite some time, she has been very vocal about her support for pro-Duterte inclinations and critical of several pro-administration moves,” said German, also the president of Agents International Public Relations.

He said what transpired was an obvious move “to solidify her position and court the pro-Duterte votes. Again, this is not surprising, but her quitting places her campaign in a tricky position wherein she still needs to assure the Marcos loyalists that she will uphold her father’s legacy.”

On the other hand, Arjan Aguirre, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Ateneo de Manila University, said Imee’s alienation from the coalition was a bizarre move from “someone who seems to prioritize her chances of winning over sticking with her kin or that coalition that campaigned for her during the early days of the campaign season.”

Aguirre, who is also involved in research on electoral, party, and contentious politics, stressed that: “Her decision to bolt the coalition and be independent is just to arrest her huge drop in the surveys—believing that her presence with the embattled Duterte faction will help her secure the votes from the Duterte supporters.”

The two analysts then urged the electorate to be vigilant and not be easily used by politicians’ dirty tactics just to gain sympathy and eventually precious votes in the coming mid-term polls.

The presidential sister last week spearheaded the Senate investigation into the arrest of Duterte, where government officials gave conflicting statements on the arrest, which the former president’s family and supporters insisted was a kidnapping and political persecution.