ZAMBOANGA CITY, 10 August 2005 — Villagers angered by one of three gubernatorial candidates in Monday’s elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) have owned up to the snatching of ballots in Basilan, the provincial governor said yesterday.
Gov. Wahab Akbar said the unidentified men snatched ballot boxes and harassed voters in Tuburan town to dramatize their protest over Mahid Mutilan, an Egyptian-educated cleric who is the incumbent vice governor.
Commissioner Mehol Sadain of the Commission on Elections earlier said the ballot-snatching appeared to be a case of cheating.
He said boxes containing 1,200 ballots were stolen late Sunday and returned Monday with the ballots and returns already filled up.
Because of the incident, which has affected 5,000 out of 15,000 votes, Sadain said the Comelec is likely to declare a failure of election in Tuburan’s 10 villages.
Monday’s elections were seen as a test of the government’s ability to hold fair polls after an electoral fraud scandal that pushed he presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to the brink of collapse in July, but there were widespread reports of traditional dirty tricks.
“Nothing has really changed,” Mujiv Hataman, a Muslim party-list member of the House of Representatives, told Reuters.
“The entire electoral process remained faulty. This may even be worse because, for the first time, there was cheating on Basilan island.”
He said teachers on Basilan, just south of the main southern island of Mindanao, reported that soldiers had snatched ballot boxes and returned them full of completed ballots.
Hataman said he was still getting reports of vote-buying, intimidation and coercion of election workers and voters.
“In some places, the voting was done even before the actual balloting could start,” he added.
Disgruntled Teachers
Akbar denied that soldiers were behind the ballot-stealing, citing “intelligence reports” that villagers were responsible.
“The people were angry and disgruntled with Mahid Mutilan because of his failure to address the growing anomalies and problems of the teachers in the ARMM. We cannot blame the people,” Akbar told Arab News.
Akbar was refering to anomalies in the salary loans and unpaid insurance premiums of thousands of teachers in the autonomous region.
He claimed that many disgruntled teachers in Basilan — tapped by the Comelec as elections officers — even threatened to boycott the polls. He said they blamed Mutilan, who is the concurrent regional education secretary, and incumbent Gov. Parouk Hussin for their plight.
Akbar said he managed to convince the teachers to “serve God and their country and save the future of the ARMM.”
Despite the ballot-stealing, he said the elections in Basilan were generally honest and peaceful.
“I attribute this to the wise decision of our people (who thought of) the future of our children and the Muslim autonomous region,” said Akbar, who supported administration gubernatorial candidate Datu Zaldy Ampatuan, the mayor of Shariff Aguak town in Maguindanao province.
Aside from Ampatuan and Mutilan, Ibrahim Paglas, a development-oriented banana plantation owner from the small town of Datu Paglas in Maguindanao, also ran in the gubernatorial election. Eight others, including Hussin who was seeking reelection, backed out from the polls because of lack of popular support or funds.
Ampatuan, the official candidate of the ruling Lakas Party, was leading yesterday in the individual and unofficial exit polls in the provinces of Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, including Marawi City, that comprised the Muslim autonomous region.
In Basilan, Ampatuan was virtually the winner in the elections, said provincial spokesman Christopher Puno.
“We are monitoring the unofficial and official counting of the votes and I can say that Ampatuan is virtually the winner here. It’s a landslide victory for him,” Puno said by phone from the Comelec monitoring center in the province.
Radio reports in Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur also showed the 37-year old Ampatuan leading in the exit polls with a wide margin.
Ampatuan is the son of Maguindanao governor Datu Andal Ampatuan, one of the most influential and respected Muslim leaders in Mindanao, who helped secure the safe release of kidnapped Italian missionary Giuseppe Pierantoni in October 2001.
The priest was kidnapped by rebels inside a small chapel in Dimataling town in Zamboanga del Sur province and brought to Lanao del Sur’s jungle where he was held for almost six months until Ampatuan risked his life and negotiated with the kidnappers until he secured the missionary’s freedom.
The ARMM is composed of the provinces of Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur plus the cities of Cotabato and Marawi. The region has 1.2 million registered voters but only about 60 percent had actually voted for the new governor, vice governor and 24 members of the Regional Legislative Assembly (RLA), elections officials said.
The low turnout was due to the lack of government campaign about the polls, analysts said.
Brig. Gen. Mohammad bin Dolorfino, commander of a military team tasked to ensure hones and peaceful elections , said the exercise was generally peaceful. “There were no reports of election-related violence, or kidnappings of candidates or bombings and terrorism and we are glad that the elections were honest and clean,” he said.
Comelec Chairman Benjamin Abalos said the polls were successful.
“There were no failures of elections in the Muslim autonomous region and the polls were successful,” he said.
The canvassing of the votes is expected to end in three days and the winners could be proclaimed this week.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo earlier urged for an honest and free elections in the autonomous region and said the democratic power of the people lies in freely choosing their leaders. “Permanent peace is within reach in Mindanao, and by the exercise of enlightened democratic choice, one can build upon the peace to bring prosperity and solidarity throughout the region,” Arroyo said. (With input from Reuters)
