Political parties are racing to secure at least 41 of the 80 parliamentary seats in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) to gain the votes needed to elect their preferred chief minister, Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman George Erwin Garcia said Sunday.

“It’s a race to 41,” Garcia said in a radio interview ahead of the 14 September BARMM parliamentary elections.

Garcia said the 80 elected parliamentary members will choose the chief minister, with 41 votes constituting the minimum needed to secure the position.

“Whichever party gets 41 [seats] will most likely be the party that will elect the chief minister,” he said.

If no party wins at least 41 seats, Garcia said political parties could form coalitions to secure the votes needed to elect a chief minister. “That is usually a feature of a parliamentary form of government,” he said.

Of the 80 parliamentary seats, 40 are allocated to political party representatives, 32 to parliamentary district representatives and eight to sectoral representatives. Garcia said 13 political parties are competing for the 40 party-representation seats.

Garcia also said the party that emerges victorious would be able to select its preferred ministry and committee appointments in the BARMM.

He expressed optimism that the elections would be peaceful and orderly, citing the relatively calm situation in the region.

One incident

“The calm that now prevails in the Bangsamoro is unusual, and, therefore, the elections will be orderly,” he said.

Garcia said there had been only one election-related incident so far — the 15 August ambush of BARMM Interim Chief Minister Abdulraof Macacua, who survived the attack.

“This is the first time in the history of the Bangsamoro that there has been only one election-related incident,” Garcia said, adding that no similar incident followed the ambush.

He said the Comelec had prepositioned soldiers and Philippine National Police personnel and trained additional police officers to serve as substitute election workers if teachers assigned to the polls could not report for duty.

Garcia warned local officials against using government resources to campaign for parliamentary candidates or political parties.

“We are really monitoring that,” Garcia said, assuring voters that the Comelec was monitoring possible misuse of government funds.

The BARMM has 2.393 million registered voters.