ISLAMABAD
The Philippines Senate has passed a bill to postpone elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, local media reported on Tuesday.
The bill was approved with a majority vote, pushing the elections from May to October, according to the Manila Times.
“With the recent Supreme Court ruling that separated Sulu from the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), we need time to reconfigure the composition of the Bangsamoro Parliament to address the parliamentary seats that would have belonged to Sulu,” Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri said.
Originally scheduled for 2022, the election was delayed and set for May 11 this year, but now it will take place in October.
In January 2019, a referendum approved the “Bangsamoro Organic Law,” officially establishing the “Bangsamoro Transition Authority” in the region, following decades of resistance by the Haji Murad Ebrahim-led Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
Ebrahim was appointed as interim chief minister of the newly formed Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) by then-President Rodrigo Duterte in February 2019.
Bangsamoro is home to around 5 million people, the majority of whom are Muslims.
