Philippines’ Muslim-majority Bangsamoro region votes for first parliament

What the report says

Nearly 2.4 million voters in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) in the southern Philippines are choosing the region’s first parliament, in what Al Jazeera described as a historic step toward self-governance. The vote, held on Monday, comes more than seven years after the autonomous region was created in 2019 and is meant to complete the transition from an interim authority to an elected regional legislature.

Al Jazeera reported that 80 seats are contested, including party-list, district and sectoral positions. Parliament will later select the region’s chief minister, who leads the executive branch. Election officials were aiming for high turnout after repeated delays to the poll. The ballot is being watched closely because BARMM was formed under a 2014 peace agreement that followed years of insurgency in the south of the largely Catholic country.

The election day was overshadowed by violence and election irregularities before polling began. The Commission on Elections placed Cotabato City under its control after a shooting late on Sunday killed three people and injured 15 others, and separate incidents included a blast involving an improvised explosive and a gunfire episode. Maluso in Basilan was also placed under commission control after pre-marked ballots were found in many precincts, prompting reprinting and delayed voting in affected areas.

The broader context, as Al Jazeera noted, is decades of conflict in the Bangsamoro region. The BARMM transition was designed to give former Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels a political path toward autonomy after they agreed to demobilize and abandon the goal of a separate state.