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Scattered violence mars special elections in S. Philippines

PHILIPPINES:. Scattered violence plagued special elections held in the southern Philippines preventing polling in three towns, officials said.

One soldier guarding a polling station was shot and wounded by armed men trying to disrupt the vote while separately the house of an election official was fired upon in the mostly-Muslim Lanao del Sur province in the southern island of Mindanao, officials said.

While no one was killed in the 13 towns where the special elections were due to be held, no polls were conducted in the towns of Butig, Pualas and Lumba Bayabao because election officials and even voters failed to show up due to the security situation, Election Commissioner Rene Sarmiento said.

He said the commission would try to have the special elections push through, possibly even on Sunday. The three towns count for more than 23,900 votes, he added.

Mid-term elections were held throughout the Philippines on May 14 to elect 12 senators and hundreds of congressmen, governors and town mayors but polls were suspended in the 13 towns in Lanao del Sur due to threats of violence, which led to election officials refusing to serve there.

Armed gangs belonging to political warlords and Muslim extremist groups all operate in the Lanao region, often using force to influence elections.

To prevent another suspension of elections, thousands of special troops were deployed to the Lanao region to guard the vote, with armed police and soldiers posted around every polling station.ABS-CBN television reported that a fist-fight broke out between followers of rival candidates in a polling station in Kapai town.

Sarmiento said there were also two cases of random gunfire, apparently intended to scare people away.

But he said most of these problems were attended to quickly. "The general situation at this time is OK except for a few incidents," Sarmiento said.

Just after the polls opened Saturday, local radio stations reported that two people had been wounded in a shooting incident in the town of Pantar but it was not immediately clear if it was related to the polls.

It is estimated that 70,000 to 100,000 votes could be cast in the elections, possibly influencing the efforts of President Gloria Arroyo's ruling coalition to claim a majority in both houses of Congress.

Arroyo allies say they have captured 183 seats in the 275-seat House of Representatives, with vote counting still unfinished.

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