Noble clans unite for peaceful polls in Maguindanao next year

COTABATO CITY -- Inspired by lessons from the November 23, 2009 Maguindanao massacre, rival datus on Monday anointed common candidates for provincial posts at stake during the 2019 elections.The filing of certificates of candidacy for local elective positions will commence this week.Conspicuously present in Monday’s event, first ever since the election-related massacre shook the nation to its core, were the new political figureheads of the Ampatuan clan whose erstwhile leaders are now being prosecuted for the atrocity.Representatives of Maguindanao’s ruling Mangudadatu, Mastura, Midtimbang and Sinsuat clans also graced the solidarity Kanduli, a traditional thanksgiving affair that highlighted their unity as part of their preparations for the forthcoming elections.The Kanduli was held at the Shariff Kabunsuan Cultural Complex inside the regional capitol compound of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in Cotabato City.The activity, witnessed by more than a thousand barangay officials and leaders of different sectors from the first and second congressional districts of Maguindanao, was jointly organized by the politically-allied Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu and Vice Gov. Lester Sinsuat.The Mangudadatu and Sinsuat clans have just reaffirmed political ties via a compact that leaders of both sides signed during a meeting last month.Participants to Monday’s Kanduli, among them mayors from across Maguindanao, favored a consensus for the now third-termer Mangudadatu to aspire for congressman of the second district of the province during the 2019 elections.Their chosen candidate for the congressional post of the first district of Maguindanao is Ronnie Sinsuat, the outgoing speaker of the 24-seat ARMM Assembly, touted as the Little Congress of the autonomous region.Mangudadatu, first elected to office in 2010, or five months after the Nov. 23, 2009 Maguindanao massacre, revealed during the Kanduli that the newly-aligned political clans shall anoint his younger sibling, Freddie, as common candidate for the provincial gubernatorial slot.Maguindanao covers 36 towns whose leaders are mostly scions of the Moro nobility.Freddie, incumbent mayor of Mangudadatu town, is president of the league of mayors in the province.Sinsuat, now in his second term as vice governor of Maguindanao, will be Freddie’s running mate, according to Mangudadatu. This was agreed upon during dialogues prior to this Kanduli, Mangudadatu told reporters at the sideline of the gathering.In separate messages, Mayor Shameem Mastura of Sultan Kudarat, and the most senior datu of Guindulungan, Midpantao Midtimbang, and his children, who are incumbent municipal officials there, also took turns assuring to help sustain the harmony now among leaders in the province, separated by gaping political divides in years before.