Voters in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao cast ballots on Monday in the region’s first parliamentary elections after decades of armed conflict in the southern Philippines.
The region, known as BARMM, covers five provinces, three cities and 63 villages across eight special geographic area clusters, with nearly 2.4 million registered voters. Election officials aimed for an 80 per cent turnout after the poll was postponed for several years.
Eighty seats were at stake in the Monday vote: 40 party representatives, 32 district representatives and eight sectoral representatives. Voters chose one regional party, one district representative and six sectoral representatives, with the 40 party seats distributed according to each party’s vote share.
The region’s chief minister is not elected directly. Members of parliament will select the chief minister from among themselves by majority vote during their first parliamentary session.
BARMM was created under a 2014 peace deal brokered by Malaysia, in which the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest Muslim rebel group, abandoned its goal of a separate state in exchange for broader autonomy. Former guerrilla leaders governed the region during a transition period that ends with these first regular elections.
Since the 1970s, about 150,000 combatants and civilians have died in conflicts over land, resources and political power in Mindanao, the country’s poorest region. Under the peace deal, the group’s fighters were to be demobilised and given livelihoods and other help.
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front last year suspended the decommissioning of its remaining 14,000 fighters and 2,450 weapons, saying the government had not fully met socio-economic commitments made under the 2014 agreement.
The Institute for Autonomy and Governance, a regional policy centre, noted that the incomplete decommissioning and the rebel group’s split into two rival political parties contesting the vote posed a potential danger of violence that could affect voter confidence.
More than 20,000 military and police personnel were deployed to secure the elections. “We have just one goal: for them to be able to vote,” Commission on Elections Chairman Erwin Garcia said.