Mindanao poll fever subdued over unchallenged candidates

Manila Times

Cotabato City

Elections in some barangays (village council) in the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) today will be just a formality.

There will be no real contest because a number of candidates are running unopposed.

Local politicos in these areas have opted to “negotiate” the elections as a way to avert violence in a place where political rivalries could turn violent, and at a time when elections are being held manually.

In Bumbaran town in Lanao del Sur province, all candidates for barangay positions in all 17 villages are running unopposed. This is good news for Governor Mamintal Adiong Jr.

“As you know, barangay elections are probably the most heated and most chaotic elections that will be conducted this year,” Adiong said earlier this month.

In the governor’s own hometown in Ditsaan-Ramain, candidates in almost half of its 35 barangays are likewise running without any opponents.

Adiong told Vera Files candidates are running unopposed in 50 to 60% of all barangays in Lanao del Sur.

Lanao del Sur, with its 1,159 barangays, ranks sixth in the list of provinces with the most number of barangays nationwide. It has the most number of barangays in the ARMM, which is composed of the provinces of Maguindanao, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi and the cities of Marawi and Lamitan.

In Maguindanao, there will be no opposition in all barangays of Datu Odin Sinsuat and Sultan Kudarat. As of Oct 27, there were 264 unopposed barangay captains, a number that may increase because Provincial Election Officer Udtog Tago said, “There are ongoing negotiations of elders in the family asking an opponent to withdraw (to) preserve the family ties.” Most of the candidates are relatives.

Citizens Coalition for ARMM Electoral Reform (C-CARE) Secretary-General Jumda Saba-ani cited Commission on Elections (Comelec) data showing candidates in 290 of Sulu’s total 410 barangays running unopposed.

She said the local poll watchdog asked for data from Basilan but even the local Comelec could not determine the exact number of villages with unopposed candidates as of Oct 26.

Comelec records in Basilan show there are more than 800 candidates for barangay chairman in 255 barangays. These include those in Isabela City, which is not part of the ARMM.

Available data from the towns of Panglima Sugala, Sibutu, Sitangkai, Mapun, Bongao, Tandubas and Simunul in Tawi-Tawi show that 56 barangay captains are running unopposed. There are no updates yet from the rest of the province’s four towns.

Comelec regional director Ray Sumalipao said at least 20%, or 527 out of the 2,490 barangays in the ARMM, have unopposed candidates.

Like Adiong, ARMM governor Mujiv Hataman said he prefers that differences be ironed out to prevent heated electoral contests. He said candidates could take turns with local positions and offers, counter offers and covenants could be made.

His message to political rivals vying for barangay positions: “You can tell them not to seek the same office anymore or let the other finish the term then it will be the other’s turn.”

Barangay elections are pivotal because village leaders are seen as crucial to the 2016 presidential elections. They are more significant in the ARMM now that the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front has signed the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro in 2012 establishing a new political entity replacing the ARMM. A transitional government is expected to take over in 2015 until the ARMM’s replacement at the end of President Benigno Aquino’s term in 2016.

Politicians in the ARMM view the barangay polls as a means to put themselves in position, and prepare for these future events.

What also makes the situation in the ARMM volatile is the presence of rido or violent clan wars. More than half of all recorded deaths from rido were politically motivated, according to the Regional Reconciliation and Unification Commission (RRUC). In its 2013 report, the RRUC said at least 170 of the 313 deaths were caused by political violence. Elections caused tension among families, the report said, as clans defended their bailiwicks by dominating barangay and municipal positions.

Local election officers as well as poll watchdogs in the ARMM all acknowledged that talks have been going on among rival political clans, with local government leaders acting as brokers.

Yet one election officer said this means democracy is thrown out the window and political affairs are left in the hands of a few. “It’s just them talking,” he said, referring to the political elite of each village.

Another factor prompting local officials to negotiate is that the elections will be done manually. In the ARMM, once tagged as the country’s cheating capital, candidates are expected to revert to the old ways of vote buying, ballot snatching, disrupting the electoral process through violence and other means of electoral fraud.

Adiong said he wanted the barangay polls in Lanao del Sur to be a repeat of the May 2013 midterm elections when there was “zero failure of election.”

“And we are trying to negotiate with barangay candidates so that most posts will no longer be contested,” he said.

Regional leaders here have their own experiences to learn. Hataman said that in the May 13 midterm elections, posts were negotiated “from provincial level down to the municipal” between the Hataman clan and its rival, the Akbar family, in his province, Basilan.

In 2012, both families signed a peace pact and agreed not to compete for the same positions in last May’s elections. “The agreement was that we keep the posts held by family members,” he said. Jum Akbar ran and won as governor while Jim Hataman Salliman won as the lone congressional representative. They did not run unopposed, but no members from each family ran against the other.

Father David Procalla, regional head of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, said hakot (transporting hundreds of voters from one precinct to another), rido, election-related violence and fraud may occur in the region, but are almost unlikely in uncontested areas.“The very reason is, elections have been negotiated),” he said, and this may include paying off candidates not to run.

“For us, that’s a payoff but for them it’s like paying marriage dowry. Even in rido, there is blood money involved,” he said.

“For us it is wrong, but for them it’s not,” he said, likening it more to an indigenous form of settlement and the perception of it being wrong as “Western point of view.”

Although the relatively more peaceful conduct of elections in unopposed areas is welcome, C-CARE’s Bobby Taguntong said, “People must still vote.”