Int'l observers to monitor elections in Moslem region<\/p>\n
MANILA (AFP): Observers from the United States, Europe and
\nAsia will monitor next week's elections in a Moslem autonomous
\nregion in the south, crucial to the success of a newly signed
\npeace accord with Islamic rebels, officials said yesterday.<\/p>\n
The nine observers, from private organizations in Bangladesh,
\nBelgium, Cambodia, Finland, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the United
\nStates, had already arrived for the September 9 poll, the
\ngovernment's Commission on Elections (Comelec) said.<\/p>\n
It will be the first election in the Philippines where votes
\nwill be counted by computer rather than the laborious, manual
\nsystem which often resulted in wide-scale fraud.<\/p>\n
Comelec executive director Resureccion Borra said there were
\n904,941 eligible voters in the Autonomous Region of Moslem
\nMindanao (ARMM).<\/p>\n
They will be electing a vice governor and members of a 21-seat
\nregional legislative assembly based in the southern island of
\nMindanao.<\/p>\n
Nur Misuari, whose Moslem insurgent Moro National Liberation
\nFront (MNLF) signed a peace treaty with Manila on Monday, ending
\na 24-year guerrilla war, is unopposed for governor.<\/p>\n
He will head a regional council that will oversee economic
\nprojects in 14 southern provinces as part of the peace deal.<\/p>\n
A meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)
\nto be held in Jakarta in December may discuss assistance for
\ndevelopment in the region, the OIC secretary general Hamid Al-
\nGabid said in Jakarta yesterday.<\/p>\n
\"The problems in the southern Philippines will be once again
\ndiscussed and perhaps aid could be organized for the development
\nand construction of the southern Philippine area,\" he said.<\/p>\n
The southern region's majority Christians have angrily opposed
\nthe peace pact, saying it gave too much power to the MNLF whose
\nguerrilla war for Moslem self-rule in the early 1970s left
\n120,000 people dead.<\/p>\n
About 105 candidates are contesting the legislative assembly
\nseats, Borra said, adding that campaigning had so far been free
\nof the violence that has been a hallmark of Philippine elections.<\/p>\n
He attributed this to the peace agreement and a pledge by an
\nMNLF breakaway group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF),
\nnot to mount attacks.<\/p>\n
Jose Concepcion, head of the National Movement for Free
\nElections, a private election watchdog, said the MILF has agreed
\nto allow ballot boxes to pass through its controlled territories
\nprovided that there are no soldiers among the escorts.<\/p>\n
Concepcion, a prominent industrialist, said the
\ncomputerization of the counting was an experiment which, if
\nsuccessful, would be used for the 1998 presidential and national
\nelections.<\/p>\n
\"What is at stake is whether we can have clean and credible
\nelections,\" he said. \"If the elections are dirty, then the
\nleadership will be put at issue.\"<\/p>",
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