‘They got the ballots, and shaded them’

If you’re a registered voter in Datu Saudi Ampatuan, Maguindanao, you don’t have to go out and vote because somebody else will likely do that for you. In a town considered the country’s second poorest, all you apparently need to do to win the elections is get the backing of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and enlist a handful of people willing to shade thousands of ballots to be fed into vote-counting machines. This was the claim of someone who ran for vice mayor in Datu Saudi Ampatuan, who flew to Manila early this week to speak out against alleged massive cheating in his municipality and provide the Inquirer video footage of the alleged poll fraud in his town. Speaking to the Inquirer in a safe house in Metro Manila on Wednesday night, Bassir Utto claimed that a reelectionist, Mayor Samsudin Dimaukom, and his wife, Anida Dimaukom, manipulated the automated elections to favor their candidacies for mayor and vice mayor, with full support from the head of the MILF 118th Base Command, Wahid Tundoc.


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