AP News, May 26th, 2007
Unidentified gunmen opened fire on soldiers guarding polling precincts during special elections Saturday in 13 Philippine towns where voting was postponed last week over fears of violence.
The government sent about 2,000 soldiers and 500 regional police commandos to secure the elections in southern Lanao del Sur province, elections commissioner Rene Sarmiento said.
He said the gunmen fired at troops in the Masiu and Pualas townships early Saturday, slightly wounding one soldier. The regional police chief later said the shooting in Masiu was not hostile in nature.
Police said soldiers also briefly exchanged fire with armed thugs in Kapai township. No casualties were reported.
The 13 Lanao del Sur towns represent about 96,400 voters, enough to affect the results of the balloting for 12 nationally elected senators.
The May 14 polls were deemed a failure in the towns after election inspectors refused to man their posts because of threats from rival political clans, or because of conflicts of interest, Sarmiento said.
Elections were postponed until Sunday in Butig township, in five villages in Pualas and in one village in Lumbabayabaowo.
"We cannot afford another failure of elections," Sarmiento said by telephone from the provincial capital of Marawi city. "We will be the laughingstock of the international community."
In other violence, fights reportedly broke out among poll watchers of rival candidates who swapped accusations of manipulating the ballot in Kapai township. The report said there also was an attempt to let a child vote, and the head of a poll watchdog group saw one voter casting ballots three times.
Meanwhile, the tabulation of results from another southern province, Maguindanao, remained suspended because of opposition allegations that ballots were "manufactured" to show administration candidates winning in the Senate race. Maguindanao has more than 300,000 voters.
An exit poll showed the opposition winning a majority of the 12 Senate positions, but President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's allies say they won in most of the 220 districts in 81 provinces represented in the House of Representatives.
More than 87,000 candidates ran for about 17,000 congressional, provincial, municipal and city posts.
Allegations of electoral fraud also marred the 2004 presidential election, when votes from Maguindanao and other provinces in a Muslim autonomous region went to Arroyo.
Arroyo has denied conspiring to rig the vote, but the allegations fueled two impeachment bids against her that were blocked by her allies in the House.
