Voters across the Philippines’ autonomous Muslim region began casting ballots for their first elected parliament Monday morning, hours after gun violence left at least three people dead outside a polling station.
The polls are the culmination of an on-off peace process that began in the late 1990s and established the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) in the country’s far south.
More than two million voters are eligible to vote for 80 parliament seats being contested by 13 parties.
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In Marawi, a city long-identified with a bloody showdown between government forces and ISIS-affiliated militants, AFP journalists saw long lines of voters peacefully queued outside polling stations with tanks and security personnel standing watch.
“We’re excited, we came here early in the morning,” said Mohammad Actar Macabada, 18, who had just cast his vote.
“I’m nervous because there might be chaos. Before there was chaos. Now it’s peaceful,” he added. “I’m excited for the results.”
Given the region’s long history of political violence and blood feuds between powerful families, a peaceful election would be considered a successful one, party leaders told AFP last week.
But the fragile peace showed cracks in the early hours of Monday.
Three people were killed and 15 others wounded as gunfire erupted hours outside a school-turned-polling station in regional capital Cotabato just hours before polls opened.
Cotabato police chief Jibin Bongcayao said the shooting took place just before midnight as members of rival political factions jostled for the right to cast their votes first.
“It started as a struggle for position in the queue between two groups,” Bongcayao said of the shooting outside a school being used as a polling station in the regional capital.
“It led to shoving, escalated into a fistfight, and eventually gunfire broke out in a crowded area.”
Bongcayao added that the men had belonged to rival parties that have emerged from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the group that spent decades fighting for regional autonomy in the predominantly Catholic country.
Security has been stepped up across the BARMM in recent days, with more than 20,000 security personnel fanning out in voting areas and quick response teams assembled to address potential violence.
Last month, a motorcade carrying the region’s interim chief minister — an appointee of President Ferdinand Marcos — was ambushed and peppered with bullets.
In a separate incident, a man died in hospital in the early hours of Monday following an explosion near another polling station. Police are still investigating the cause.
