Bangsamoro region holds first parliamentary elections amid violence and fraud claims
The predominantly Muslim Bangsamoro region in the southern Philippines held its first parliamentary elections, with high turnout despite deadly violence and fraud concerns.
A predominantly Muslim region in the southern Philippines held its first elections for a regional parliament on Monday and Tuesday, a milestone in its long-delayed transition to self-rule after decades of insurgency.
Officials reported turnout above 80%, even as five people were killed in election-related violence in the regional capital and polling was extended to a second day in some precincts over a suspected effort to cheat.
More than 20,000 soldiers and police officers were deployed to secure the vote.
Voters are choosing the 80 members of the regional parliament, who will in turn elect a chief minister during their first session. Results were expected by the end of Tuesday.
Authorities extended voting in 36 of 86 precincts in Maluso town on Basilan island after pre-filled-out ballots were discovered. New ballots for 16,000 affected voters were printed and delivered late Monday, and polls will remain open for them until 7 p.m. on Tuesday.
Commission on Elections Chairman Erwin Garcia welcomed the high turnout and said those behind the attempted cheating will face election sabotage charges.
"The elections stand on generations of Bangsamoro struggle for homeland, identity, and self-determination, in the face of dispossession, marginalization, conflict and sacrifice," Garcia said in an earlier statement.
The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was created under a 2014 peace deal, replacing an older autonomous region with a larger, better-funded and more powerful entity. Since its establishment, the region has been run by an appointed transitional government composed of former guerrilla leaders.
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest Muslim rebel group, abandoned its pursuit of independence from the largely Roman Catholic country in exchange for broader autonomy, and its 40,000 fighters pledged to demobilize and return to civilian life.
The region covers five provinces, three cities and 63 additional villages, and is home to nearly 2.4 million voters.
Since the 1970s, about 150,000 combatants and civilians have died in the southern Philippines, while development has lagged in the country's poorest region. Mindanao was long viewed as a haven for al-Qaida and the Islamic State group until a U.S.-backed Philippine offensive weakened the militants.
In May 2017, IS-linked militants laid siege to the city of Marawi, triggering five months of ground assaults and airstrikes that left more than 1,100 people, mostly militants, dead and destroyed the mosque-studded city's commercial and residential districts.
"Whoever wins, hopefully we will see change," said Sittie Ashuya L. H. Omar, a 22-year-old voter from Marawi. "Hopefully they can implement their promises."