Posted on 05/21/2007 7:19:47 PM PDT by Cornpone
Zamboanga City, 21 May (AKI) - The defeat of the leader of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MNLF) Nur Misuari in the Sulu archipelago's gubernatorial race could be a setback for peace, a local expert told AdnKronos International (AKI). "If Misuari had won, we could have hoped for a respite in terms of peace and order in Sulu," Octavio Dinampo, a university professor and an expert on the Sulu conflict, told AKI on Monday. "Misuari still has a strong say among his men," added Dinampo who was also an independent observer at the May mid-term elections,.
Dinampo’s comment come as the provincial electoral commission, Comelec, proclaimed the former governor Abdulsakur Tan as the winner of 14 May elections in Sulu, the archipelago that extends from the southernmost tip of the Philippines until the Indonesia-Malaysia’s shared island of Borneo
The Muslim rebel leader finished third in a three-cornered contest with the incumbent Benjamin Loong ranking second.
“The canvassing is not yet over, but Tan has an overwhelmingly lead,” Dinampo said.
The election was held as tension is extremely high in Sulu with the army pursuing a MNLF splinter group led by commander Ustadz Habier Malik, a former aid of Misuari. The military blames Malik for an attack against a military post in Sulu, which killed three marines, as well as 17 MNLF members, a few weeks back. Manila has offered some 1 million pesos ($20,000) bounty for Malik’s capture.
Dinampo, who is also a member of the civil society Concerned Citizen of Sulu (CCS), said that “Misuari could have been the right person to mediate the on-going conflict.”
Meanwhile, the MNLF has not accepted the election result.
In an interview with Filipino newspaper, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, senior MNLF member Habib Zain Jali reported widespread cheating and called for Comelec to void the elections result.
Dinampo added that many of Misuari’s supporters were unable to vote because they are still in the evacuation centers.
According to CCS data, more than 50 thousands people are still in refugee camps, due to the fighting between the army and the MNLF and the army and the Abu Sayyaf Group, a local terrorist group sprouted out of the MNLF in the early 1990s.
Sulu has 251,218 registered voters but, Dinampo said, only few voted. According to Comelec, the turnout was 65 to 80 percent nationwide.
Misuari is currently under house arrest in an exclusive suburb in Manila. He was charged with rebellion when he allegedly ordered MNLF fighters to attack government targets in Sulu and Zamboanga City in 2001. The incidents killed nearly 100 people.
He was allowed to run for governor and was given temporary freedom to register and cast his vote in Sulu. This is the second failed attempt by Misuari to run the governorship of Sulu.
MNLF, which has been fighting for an independent Islamic state in the southern Philippines since the late 1960s, signed a peace accord with Manila in 1996 and accepted a limited autonomy in the Muslim-dominated Mindanao. In the same year, Misuari was elected as governor of the newly-formed Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
More than 45 million Filipinos were called to elect half of the 24 seats in the Senate, the 275 members of the House of Representatives and more than 17,000 administrative officials both at national and local level on 14 May.
“The monkeys have no tails in Zamboanga...” - from a US Army song, dating from the Spanish-American War.
Uh..that would be last.
Well, that sure beats Pearl Harbor...you got me beat.
It doesn't matter. The election was stolen by everyone who didn't vote for me. They must die.
Shhhhh...don’t give the Dems ideas...
sorry...I'll try to be berry berry quiet..soze dem dems don't hear about our gunpowder democracy...it'll be our secret...along with the Islamists...
Democracy’s a bitch.
"Were all bitten off by whales in Zamboanga..."
I learned that from Beaver Cleaver!
bttt
the gay blade... sulu?
i would’ve never guessed... checov perhaps, but not sulu
teeman
Misauri? Any relation to Dick Gephardt?
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