BARMM's first parliament takes shape as BFP edges the MILF party list

The Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao held its first parliamentary election on 14 September. Comelec's central operations centre had 5,138 of 5,212 election returns by 4 p.m. on Tuesday, 98.58 percent. The unofficial party-list count transmitted to the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting put the Bangsamoro Federalist Party on 660,947 votes and the United Bangsamoro Justice Party, the MILF vehicle, on 609,245. The BARMM Grand Coalition had 386,224. The Raayat Democratic Party had 67,865, just over the 2.5 percent threshold that earns a party seat.

The parliament has 80 seats: 40 for regional party representatives, 32 for district representatives, eight for sectors. A party needs 2.5 percent of valid party votes for at least one of the 40 party seats. With 2.393 million registered voters, the theoretical floor if every vote were valid was 59,830. Four parties have cleared it on the partial count. Early seat math run on a smaller overnight sample pointed to roughly 16 party seats for BFP, 15 for UBJP and eight for BGC, with Raayat and smaller lists splitting the rest. District races will change the floor total. UBJP and BFP were also winning districts.

Cotabato City's first district is a marker. Former Comelec chairman Sheriff Abas took the seat for UBJP with 12,334 votes, 57.75 percent, over Romeo Kabuntalan Sema of the MNLF line, who had 8,676 votes and 40.63 percent. Sema loses the appointed Bangsamoro Transition Authority seat he has held since 2019. Abas is related to Mohagher Iqbal, the second nominee on the UBJP party list. Vote-buying allegations against Abas, which he denied, will follow him into the chamber.

This is the vote the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro was built to reach. The Transition Authority has run the region on appointment since 2019. Monday replaced that with a mixed member parliament chosen by 2.39 million people across 105 municipalities and 5,212 precincts. Comelec chair George Garcia had hoped for 65 to 70 percent turnout. Final turnout will come with the official canvass.

The political map is not a MILF walkover. BFP leading the party vote means the first elected parliament will have to bargain inside the Moro camp, not only with Manila. Murad Ebrahim remains UBJP's first party nominee. Suwaib Oranon leads BFP's list. Mamintal Raki-in Adiong, from the Lanao del Sur clan, leads BGC. Those three names are the start of speakership and cabinet math.

Sectoral seats still have to be filled. Indigenous peoples already chose two representatives by assembly. Non-Moro settlers have two seats. The remaining sectors have one each. Until those names are in, the 80 is not whole.

Security on the day was part of the story. A shooting had preceded the vote in the region. Polls still closed. Transmission of returns began after 7 p.m. once the first nine copies of each election return had been printed. The remaining 74 returns on Tuesday afternoon are enough to move a close district and not enough, on present margins, to knock BFP or UBJP out of the top two on the party list.

A first election after a peace deal is a test of the deal, not a celebration of it. The partial numbers say the MILF party is large and not alone. They also say a former national elections chief is now a regional MP. The official canvass will freeze the 40 party seats. District certificates will freeze the 32. What the new parliament does with taxation, policing and the remaining normalisation agenda is the work that the appointed years postponed.