Philippines: Political jockeying and violence before the 2025 elections
in BARMM
By Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict | Date 05-5-2024
All parties to the peace process in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) must now take steps to reduce the potential for political violence in the lead-up to the 2025 parliamentary elections.
The latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), “Philippines: Political Jockeying and Violence before the 2025 Elections in BARMM”, analyses the different power blocs that will determine the outcome of the 2025 elections and the political jockeying and alliance-building that has already begun. The stakes are huge. “While the peace process itself doesn’t hang in the balance,” says Sidney Jones, senior adviser to IPAC, “the quality of the peace does, and the impact of the 2025 elections will be enormous.”
The report explores the mechanics of the elections, the battle to control economic resources, how traditional politicians have moved into king-maker roles, the implications of victory or defeat for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and some of the contentious issues that are raising hackles. These include the gerrymandering undertaken by the MILF leadership in an effort to boost the chances for its party, the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP), and a probably doomed effort to ban political dynasties. It also looks at why the last phase of “normalization” and the decommissioning of MILF fighters has moved so slowly and why it would be in the interest of everyone to complete it speedily.
The 2025 elections for an 80-seat parliament will culminate in the peace process that produced the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro. The sources of potential violence, however, are many, from politicians determined to win seats at any cost, disgruntled combatants, a rift in the top ranks of the MILF leadership, and remnants of pro-ISIS groups determined to disrupt democratic procedures.
All parties need to take steps now to prevent deadly conflict. The government needs to map particularly tense areas and assign additional security forces. It also needs to work with civil society and universities to identify and respond to threats and disinformation on social media. Police must avoid serving arrest warrants on former (and possibly armed) combatants without prior communication with those who can negotiate a peaceful surrender. The MILF needs to get its own house in order. Finally, all local political parties based on the Mindanao mainland need to reach out to the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi to ensure their concerns are reflected in programs and Cabinet choices once the elections are over.
“Violence can’t be eliminated, but it can surely be reduced,” says Jones. “Keeping conflict to a minimum before the elections will help give the new government, once in office, the best chance of living up to the aspirations of those who worked for so long to bring it into being.”
VIOLENCE IN THE SOUTHERN PHILIPPINES IN THE LEAD-UP TO LOCAL ELECTIONS
Political violence is likely to worsen, particularly in central Mindanao, as village elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) draw closer.
These elections, scheduled for late October 2023, will put in place the get-out-the-vote machinery for the much more important vote in 2025, when voters for the first time will choose members of the BARMM parliament. Everything points to the traditional clans of Mindanao and the island provinces of Sulu, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi further entrenching themselves in 2025, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) losing control of the region it helped set up through long, laborious peace negotiations.
“Violence in the Southern Philippines in the Lead-up to Local Elections”, the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), notes that more is at stake in 2025 than MILF control. The power of the political bosses has grown to the point that in the name of preventing violence, they are increasingly trying to ensure that their candidates at a local level run unopposed. “There is something deeply amiss if you have to deny voters a choice in the name of ensuring their security,” says Sidney Jones, IPAC senior adviser. “It means the political machines will always win.”
The report looks in depth at the situation in Sulu and Maguindanao, now divided into Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte. It looks at the political dynamics in these provinces as elections approach, including the efforts of the MILF’s United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP) to cut deals with traditional leaders in order to secure more seats. It also examines recent outbreaks of violence in these areas, which are a reminder, if any is needed, of how heavily armed this region still is
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To put the UBJP’s electoral woes in perspective, the report compares the context in BARMM with Aceh in Indonesia, where guerrillas also turned themselves into politicians after a peace process, ran in local elections for the first time in 2006 against Jakarta-backed politicians, and won by a landslide when they were expected to lose. But BARMM in 2023 is vastly more complicated than Aceh was then, and the comparison shows how difficult UBJB’s task will be, both in October and late in 2025.
If the risk of conflict is to be reduced, the government needs to do more to address private armed groups and unregistered weapons; break the patronage link between local political bosses and the police; speed up the amnesty process; and ensure independent investigations into incidents of violence that become highly politicised. The MILF, for its part, needs to do more to show voters in BARMM that it can govern cleanly and competently.