BARMM holds its first parliamentary election as UBJP and BFP split the early count

Voters in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao cast ballots on Monday in the first parliamentary election since the region was created in 2018. Partial unofficial figures published through the night showed two parties well above the 2.5 percent threshold that unlocks regional parliamentary party seats, with a third close behind and a fourth just over the line.

The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting put the Bangsamoro Federalist Party on 643,907 votes, or 34.9 percent, as of 1:03 a.m. Tuesday. The United Bangsamoro Justice Party, the political vehicle of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, had 599,053 votes, or 32.5 percent. The Bangsamoro Grand Coalition had 380,084 votes, or 20.6 percent. The Raayat Democratic Party had 67,564 votes, or 3.7 percent. Those four would take the party-list block if the proportions hold. The Pro Bangsamoro Party sat on 2.0 percent and had not yet cleared the cutoff.

GMA News, working from 93.38 percent of election returns at 10:14 p.m. Monday, had shown the same order: BFP 34.8 percent, UBJP 32.6 percent, the Grand Coalition 20.7 percent, Raayat 3.7 percent. Regional parliamentary party seats are filled from closed lists of 40 nominees. The share of the region-wide party vote decides how many names from each list enter the 80-member Bangsamoro Parliament.

District races ran on a different track. In the Special Geographic Area's first district, Mansor Ebrahim of the UBJP defeated Butch Malang of the BFP by 29,061 votes to 17,386 once all SGA returns were in, Rappler reported. Mansor is the son of MILF chairman Ahod "Al Haj Murad" Ebrahim. Malang is a former SGA Development Authority administrator and, until last week, chair of the MILF Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities. The MILF central committee removed him from that post seven days before the poll.

The SGA covers barangays in Cotabato province that opted into Bangsamoro. A five-year transition term attaches to that district seat. The father-son result, and the firing of Malang, turn one local race into a measure of how much of the old MILF chain of command still binds the new parliament.

Monday's vote replaces an appointed interim parliament that has run the region since the 2019 plebiscite. The design was meant to move Bangsamoro from a peace-agreement bureaucracy to an elected legislature with taxing and policing powers under the Organic Law. A shooting that killed three people was reported at one restive precinct. Overall turnout and official canvassing will take days.

What the early numbers already show is a split inside the Moro political class rather than a single-party inheritance. The MILF's UBJP is not running away with the party vote. The BFP, built in part by figures who left or were pushed from MILF structures, is matching it and in the partial count leading it. The Grand Coalition's 20 percent is large enough to matter in any speakership bargain.

For Manila, the test is whether the new chamber can pass a budget and keep the normalization track with the national government. For Cotabato, the test is whether Monday's losers accept the count. Mansor Ebrahim's district win gives the Ebrahim family a direct seat. The party-list math will decide whether that seat sits inside a plurality or inside a coalition that has to be built after the last return is posted.