BARMM holds its first parliament vote as MILF party and rivals split the list seats

The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao voted on Monday in its first parliamentary election since the region was created in 2018. Partial, unofficial results late Monday, with 93.38 percent of election returns processed, put two parties well ahead in the region-wide race for party-list seats.

The Bangsamoro Federalist Party had 614,672 votes, or 34.8 percent. The United Bangsamoro Justice Party, the vehicle of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, had 571,703 votes, or 32.6 percent. The BARMM Grand Coalition had 20.7 percent. The Rayat Democratic Party-Bangsamoro People's Democratic Party had 3.7 percent. Those four were above the 2.5 percent threshold needed to take regional parliamentary party seats. The Progresibong Bangsamoro Party sat on 2.0 percent and had not yet crossed.

A party list, not a presidential race

Regional parliamentary party representatives are chosen in a single region-wide contest among registered parties. Each party files a ranked list of 40 names. Seats follow the vote share. That design was meant to pull armed movements into a chamber rather than into another command structure. Monday was the first time voters, rather than an appointed interim house, filled those seats.

District races ran beside the party list. In the Special Geographic Area's first district, Mansor Ebrahim of the UBJP beat Butch Malang of the BFP by 29,061 votes to 17,386, with all local returns in. Ebrahim is the son of MILF chairman Ahod Al Haj Murad Ebrahim. Malang is a former SGA Development Authority administrator and a former chair of the MILF Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities. The MILF central committee stripped him of that chairmanship a week before the poll. The son's win, on a night when the father's party was running close with a rival in the list race, is the family fact that will be read into the larger result.

What the first elected chamber has to do

The Bangsamoro parliament is the test of the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro. The interim period ran long. An elected house now has to pass a budget, keep the police and the remaining MILF forces inside one political argument, and deal with Manila on revenue and on the other armed groups that never joined the deal. None of that is solved by a vote share.

A near tie between the BFP and the UBJP on the party list means the first working majority will be a coalition. The Grand Coalition's 20.7 percent is large enough to matter in that arithmetic. Parties that fought as movements will now have to vote on school places and farm roads. That is the point of a parliament. It is also how parliaments disappoint the people who expected a flag to settle every file.

International monitors will call the day historic because no BARMM parliament has been elected before. The local test is narrower. Did the count hold in districts where commanders still have men? Did the losing candidate in SGA accept 17,386 against 29,061 after being removed from a ceasefire committee? Those answers will arrive after the last return, not in the first headline.