Here are some final comments about the Philippine election. Thank you, Noel!
NOEL: I certainly hope you become a regular here, Suresh! So does at least one reader. It isn’t like you don’t have a lot to say ...
This crazy electoral gunfight video is from the PIOM delegation to the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). Somebody tried to expel partisan poll watcher, which started a fight. Guns were whipped out, shooting started, and one person was killed due from shrapnel. (No one seems to have been directly shot.) Strangely, somebody hauled off a PCOS voting machine during the melee.
Apparently, Comelec doesn’t use the term “electoral violence” to describe violence during elections in the ARMM, because it’s between rival families and clans. But the report of the PIOM team that went there was an endless litany of very bad things: Election workers not even showing up to some very large precincts. The rejection of electronic voting refused because of fears that the immediate public tally would prompt violence. Election fixing — one candidate received ₱20,000 to drop out of the race. Seals broken on the electronic ballot boxes. People taking money on their way into the voting area. Hell, snack distribution by one candidate triggered a fight, and 3 bombs went off in other polling areas ... thankfully, nobody was hurt.
I don’t really understand the situation in the ARMM, but that’s gotta be a textbook case of elections in a weak state. Interestingly, the area where the videoed gunfight broke out is still counting votes, indicating that the election is NOT considered a failure.
U.S. troops have been deployed in the ARMM to hunt down Abu-Sayyed, including the creation of military outposts. It may not be a stretch to think of ARMM as a Latin American country, albeit with its own unique Islamic blend of U.S. military bases, bullets and ballots that created such problems in Colombia.
Our final PIOM report and other stuff can be found here.
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