ASEAN Beat | Politics | Southeast Asia

After the Bangsamoro Poll, Can Politics Maintain the Peace?

The peace process in the autonomous region will continue long after the votes have been counted and a new government formed.

The Bangsamoro Transition Authority votes on a proposed transition plan as an interim Bangsamoro Parliament in a special session on June 17, 2019.

On September 14, more than 2.3 million registered voters in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) in the southern Philippines will go to the polls for the first regular parliamentary election.

The immediate priority is that the elections should be peaceful, orderly, and credible, but beyond that there is another question that deserves attention: what will political competition look like in communities where political loyalties are changing, particularly in areas historically aligned with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)? The answer could have important consequences for the peace process.

Election-related violence is not new to the Bangsamoro. It long predates the peace agreement with the MILF, and has often been associated with clan rivalries, private armed groups, and local political competition rooted in longstanding disputes. In many communities, elections can even appear relatively peaceful because political power is concentrated within a dominant family or network. The absence of violence, therefore, does not necessarily mean the absence of political contestation; sometimes, it simply reflects the absence of meaningful competition.

As I have argued previously, the movement’s political environment has become increasingly fragmented. Former allies now find themselves competing through different political formations, including the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP) and the Bangsamoro Federalist Party (BFP). Some may remain aligned with UBJP, while others have moved toward BFP or other competing parties and candidates. This raises the question of whether former allies who once operated within a common political and organizational framework can compete against one another without reproducing the patterns of conflict that the peace process was designed to transform.

There is a danger of interpreting every violent incident during the election period as evidence that the peace process is failing. This would overlook the longstanding nature of election-related violence in the Bangsamoro, which has long existed independently of the Muslim insurgency and the peace process. Thus, reports of localized violence that have appeared in recent weeks and months need to be examined carefully.  The important question here is where these incidents are occurring, who is involved, and whether they are connected to the emerging political dynamics that surround them.

At the same time, assuming that all such incidents are merely ordinary election violence could obscure emerging risks to the peace process. In this case, the important goal is whether local disputes can still be contained through the institutions and relationships established by the process.

The government of the Philippines and MILF have taken steps to maintain a ceasefire during the election period. The security mechanisms established under the peace process have coordinated arrangements for the polls, reflecting the recognition that political competition should not disrupt the cessation of hostilities.

But elections create challenges that cannot always be resolved through ceasefire arrangements alone. The difficulty becomes particularly apparent when communities that were previously aligned around the MILF become politically divided. At the community level, these divisions can cut across families, former comrades, and other longstanding relationships.

This is a normal feature of political transition. Former combatants are expected to become citizens and political actors with different choices and interests. However, it also represents a significant transformation. The peace process once depended in part on the ability of the MILF to maintain organizational cohesion and discipline among its forces and communities. Democratic politics, by contrast, requires the acceptance of........

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