Bangsamoro holds first parliament poll in key test of Philippines peace deal

The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in the southern Philippines held its first parliamentary election on Monday, in a major step in its push for self-rule after decades of insurgency and violence. The vote is being seen as a key test of a 2014 peace deal that created the autonomous region and ended the largest Muslim rebel group's bid for a separate state.

Under the agreement, the rebel group accepted broader autonomy in exchange for giving up its demand for independence, and its 40,000 fighters pledged to lay down arms and return to civilian life. The election will choose lawmakers for the regional parliament, which will later elect the chief minister at its first session.

Officials said the election was largely peaceful, although there were incidents of violence. One person was killed after commotion at a polling station in Cotabato, the main city in the region. Supporters of one political party also damaged two vehicles belonging to a rival politician with steel bars. Late on Sunday, three people were killed and 15 others were wounded in a shooting in Cotabato, which houses the Bangsamoro regional government offices, including the local parliament.

In Maluso town on Basilan Island, the Commission on Elections took control after pre-shaded ballots were found in 36 of 68 precincts. Commission Chairman Erwin Garcia said he had immediately ordered the reprinting of ballots and that voting there would be delayed. He also said those responsible would be held accountable. As of early Monday, 98.1 per cent of the region's polling stations were open, according to the commission.

Eighty seats are at stake in the election. The autonomous region includes five provinces, three cities and 63 villages, with nearly 2.4 million voters. Election officials said they expected an 80 per cent turnout after the polling was postponed for several years. Voting ended at 7 pm local time, except in places where delays meant polling hours had to be extended. Candidates running unopposed were expected to be declared winners late on Monday.

"Whoever wins, hopefully we will see change," said Sittie Ashuya L H Omar, a 22-year-old voter from Marawi. "Hopefully they can implement their promises."

Garcia had said earlier, "The elections stand on generations of Bangsamoro struggle for homeland, identity, and self-determination, in the face of dispossession, marginalization, conflict and sacrifice."

The vote comes after years of conflict in the southern Philippines. In May 2017, militants linked to the Islamic State group laid siege to Marawi, leading to five months of ground fighting and airstrikes that killed more than 1,100 people, most of them militants, and destroyed the city's commercial and residential districts. Since the 1970s, about 150,000 combatants and civilians have died in the south, while development has remained limited in one of the country's poorest regions. Western and Asian governments had feared the long-running insurgencies could fuel Islamic extremism in Southeast Asia, and Mindanao had once been a base for al-Qaida and Islamic State-linked militants before a US-backed Philippine offensive weakened them.

More than 20,000 soldiers and police personnel were deployed for the election, with troops patrolling roads, as the region voted in a landmark election meant to advance autonomy under the peace deal despite fresh security concerns and polling disruptions.