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.
Marawi, Sunday, AFP |