Gunmen assassinated two people yesterday as violence, delays and irregularities marred Philippine elections to choose thousands of village and district officials, police and authorities said.
A hand grenade was also thrown in front of a polling precinct in the restive southern Maguindanao Province hours before voting began, forcing poll officials to cancel elections there.
Village councilor Valentin Campos died in hospital after he was shot outside the southern city of Butuan hours before polling was to start, police said.
Two gunmen aboard a motorcycle meanwhile gunned down 58-year-old Elpidio Cabatuando, a former councilor, in the northern city of Gapan.
The attacks brought the number of election-related deaths at 32 since campaigning began last month for the hotly sought-after posts of district chairmen and council members in the country’s 42,000 villages.
As well as giving officials power over small communities, the posts can be a stepping stone to higher office and are often contested by relatives or children of more senior officials as a training run for an eventual succession.
Philippine President Benigno Aquino appealed to the public to go out and vote despite the violence, saying village officials were important to his anti-corruption agenda.
Elsewhere, police in central Masbate Province said troops at a roadblock seized at least 10 firearms from a “private army” allegedly controlled by a local politician.
“We also received reports of vote-buying and ballot-snatching,” deputy police chief for operations Director Benjamin Belarmino said.
He said poll officials in -Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur, another unstable area in the south, did not show up for work amid threats from warring politicians.
Elections in about 1,599 villages were postponed as a result of chaos resulting from violence, as well as delays in the delivery of election materials, he said.
Democracy was restored in the Philippines in 1986, when a “people power” revolution ended the 20-year dictatorship of former president Ferdinand Marcos.
However, elections since have often been marred by violence, with many politicians known to employ private armies to harass and intimidate voters and rivals.
At least 28 people were killed in violence related to the presidential and congressional elections in May.
In the country’s worst case of poll-related violence in years, 57 people were murdered allegedly by a powerful political clan in the south in November last year.
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