COTABATO CITY, 12 October — Twelve aspirants, including two followers of Nur Misuari, are contesting the governorship of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Ten others are aspiring for the vice governor’s post.
Those who filed their certificates of candidacy with the Commission on Elections were acting governor Alvares Isnaji, regional environment secretary Randy Karon, Dr. Parouk Hussin, lawyer Macapanton Abbas Jr., Sanggacala Baraguir, Hadji Shariff Mangacop Umpa Datu Saudi, , Emphraim Defino, Jimmy Matalam, Ahmad Darping Noh, Elsie Orejodos, Ibrahim Paglas, Saidona Pendatun, and former Lanao del Sur administrator Hadji Batara.
Registration closed on Wednesday.
Also at stake in the Nov. 26 regional elections are the post for vice governor and members of the local legislative assembly.
A Moro women’s group earlier asked President Gloria Arroyo to name Bai Sandra Sema as the candidate in the gubernatorial derby. “It is high time that a woman lead the region to do what the men failed,” said the Bangsamoro Movement for Unity, which lambasted the region’s three previous male governors for “failing to deliver.”
“The country is in good hands under the leadership of President Macapagal-Arroyo. The ARMM will end up in good hands as well if a woman sits as ARMM chief executive,” the group said in a statement.
Organized in 1990, the ARMM had been led by Zacaria Candao, a Maguindanaoan; Liningding Pangandaman, a Maranao; and Misuari, a Tausug.
Mrs. Sema, wife of Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, however, has opted to run for vice governor.
The participation of Isnaji — the ARMM’s outgoing speaker of the assembly and named acting governor in place of Misuari — and Karon has raised speculations that the Misuari faction of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) was now recognizing the coming election.
Misuari had refused to recognize the results of the Aug. 14 plebiscite that expanded the ARMM and set the coming balloting for Nov. 26, saying these violated the 1996 peace accord between the government and the MNLF.
Misuari, who had been accused by his critics of neglecting his constituents by being out of the country or the region most of the time, is still out of the country.
Reports have said that the Malacañang candidate is Dr. Parouk Hussin, MNLF deputy chair and presidential assistant for Muslim affairs, with former Lanao del Sur Gov. Mahid Mutilan as his running mate.
Cotabato City Mayor Sema, a member of the executive committee that ousted Misuari as MNLF chairman, confirmed that Hussin is President Arroyo’s “anointed.”
