OIC closely watching ARMM polls

The international community, particularly the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and several first world donor nations, will be closely monitoring the conduct and results of the Aug. 8 elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Senate President Franklin Drilon said yesterday.

Drilon has urged the government to ensure that the ARMM election is conducted in a clean, peaceful, credible and orderly manner. He warned that if the elections are not conducted in this way, millions of dollars in foreign official development assistance to the island of Mindanao will be lost.

Besides the OIC, "donor countries such as the United States, Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom are planning to dispatch election monitoring teams to the (ARMM) to check on persistent reports of poll fraud," he said.

Noting that there are less than three months left before the ARMM polls, Drilon said extreme poverty will continue to make religious extremism and terrorism an attractive option for the disgruntled people of the region unless an effective and graft-free government is put in place there.

In a statement Drilon said the ARMM elections are critical and he said "government must ensure that measures (are) undertaken to correct the prevailing perception that massive election fraud is the rule rather than the exception in Muslim Mindanao."

The Liberal Party, which Drilon heads, is fielding progressive businessman Datu Ibrahim Toto Paglas as the party’s gubernatorial candidate and Lanao Rep. Abdullah Dimaporo’s brother, Hata, as its vice-gubernatorial bet.

The Dimaporo brothers are scions of the influential Dimaporo clan of Lanao.

The LP is supporting Paglas’ candidacy and his reform-oriented, anti-corruption and development platform of government.