Election officer urged to inhibit from performing poll duties

COTABATO CITY – Residents here have called in the city election officer to inhibit from performing his functions during tomorrow’s barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections due to the candidacy of his brother and other relatives.

Local radio stations were flooded yesterday with complaint against Datu Arlan Mangelen, city election officer, whose brother is running for councilman in Lisbong District here. The complainants also alleged that Mangelen is related both by consanguinity and affinity to certain candidates for barangay and SK positions in other Muslim-dominated areas here.

Mangelen was quick to clarify there was no need for him to inhibit from tomorrow’s synchronized ba­rangay and SK polls because the exercise is non-partisan and that voters would embark on anything that would give advantage to the candidacy of his brother.

“I can guarantee the public that they should not fear anything,” Mangelen told Catholic station dxMS here yesterday.

Mangelen said he would also see to it that the SK and barangay elections here tomorrow would be peaceful, honest and orderly.

In other developments, residents in Parang, Shariff Kabunsuan have asked the Commission on Elections to defer tomorrow’s barangay elections in their municipality due to the “mysterious delisting” of about a thousand voters identified with camps politically at odds with their mayor from the recent list of local voters.

Adnan Biruar, the former vice mayor here, said he has asked the election supervisor of Shariff Kabunsuan, Kasan Usi, to immediately investigate on the constraint, which triggered indignation among those whose names have disappeared from the town’s list of voters.

“This is very surprising and so strange. The Commission on Elections should look into this,” Biruar told reporters. “Does this mean all of these more than a thousand voters all died together of a deadly disease? This is very strange.” – John Unson