Bangsamoro Region Holds First Parliamentary Elections in Southern Philippines

The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao held its first parliamentary elections on Monday, a milestone in the region's long pursuit of self-rule following decades of insurgency and violence.

The autonomous region was established under a 2014 peace agreement in which the largest Muslim rebel group abandoned its goal of a separate Muslim state in the predominantly Catholic Philippines in return for expanded autonomy. Its roughly 40,000 fighters had pledged to demobilize and return to civilian life.

Eighty parliamentary seats were contested across five provinces, three cities and 63 villages, with nearly 2.4 million registered voters. Election officials anticipated an 80 percent turnout after polling was delayed for several years.

More than 20,000 soldiers and police were deployed for the vote, and troops carrying long arms patrolled roadsides.

The region's chief minister, who leads the executive branch, will be chosen by parliament during its first session.

Commission on Elections Chairman Erwin Garcia told a news conference on Sunday that the security situation had been peaceful. He warned that anyone attempting to incite violence or buy votes would face charges.

"The elections stand on generations of Bangsamoro struggle for homeland, identity, and self-determination, in the face of dispossession, marginalization, conflict and sacrifice," he said in an earlier statement.

Since the 1970s, about 150,000 combatants and civilians have died in the southern Philippines, and development has lagged in what remains the country's poorest region. Western and Asian governments had feared the persistent insurgencies could fuel Islamic extremism in Southeast Asia. Mindanao, once a haven for al-Qaida and the Islamic State group amid bombings and kidnappings, saw the militants weakened after a U.S.-backed Philippine offensive.