Muslim-majority Philippine region prepares for landmark election

COTABATO CITY, Philippines (MNTV) — About 2.4 million voters in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao — the Muslim-majority self-governing region in the southern Philippines — will elect an 80-seat regional parliament on Sept. 14, in the region’s first such vote, The Inquirer reported.

The election ends a seven-year transition period in which the parliament was made up of presidential appointees, moving the region to a government directly chosen by voters. Interim Chief Minister Abdulraof Macacua called it the formal transition from an interim government to an elected one. 

The main contest pits the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP) — the political arm of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the former rebel group that signed a 2014 peace deal and now governs the region — against the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, linked to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s national party.

The rivalry is personal as well as political: MILF chairman Ahod “Al Haj Murad” Ebrahim leads the UBJP, while Macacua, whom Marcos appointed chief minister last year to replace Ebrahim, has become a key figure for the Federalist party — a move the MILF’s leadership resented, stripping him of party and military posts.

Under a new voting system, half the 80 seats will be filled by proportional representation among regional parties (with a 2.5 percent threshold), 32 by district races, and eight reserved for sectoral representatives, including non-Moro Indigenous people, settlers, women, youth, traditional leaders, and religious scholars. 

Rather than being directly elected, the chief minister will be chosen by parliament from among its members. 

Campaigning, which began July 30, ends Sept. 12.