By DAVID SANTOS
ABS-CBN Zamboanga
Detained Indanan, Sulu Mayor Alvarez Isnaji is likely to support moves to postpone the August 11 elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
Isnaji is among seven candidates running for the ARMM gubernatorial post.
The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) reiterated that Isnaji, along with his son Haider, remain to be official candidates for the elections despite facing criminal charges on the kidnapping of an ABS-CBN News team and a university professor in Sulu last June.
Haider Isnaji is a candidate for assemblyman of Sulu.
Lawyer Jose Ventura Aspiras said his clients failed to maximize the allocated campaign period due to their incarceration.
Postponing the elections, Aspiras pointed out, would give the Isnajis the opportunity to solicit votes and explain their platforms.
Even if the elections push through on August 11 however, Aspiras said the Isnajis remain confident that their family and partymates were able to campaign for them.
The COMELEC meanwhile said that the Isnajis have to file a petition before the courts to allow them to vote. There is no word yet, if the court would allow the Isnajis to fly to their hometown in Sulu or remain in their detention center in Manila to cast their votes on election day.
In the 2007 local elections, detained Moro National Liberation Front founding chairman Nur Misuari, who was then detained, was allowed by the courts to fly to Sulu to vote.
Misuari, who was then being held for leading a failed rebellion against the government in 2002, was allowed to run for governor in his home province in 2007.
Other Stories
Salad downs more that 20 people in Mallig, Isabela
More than twenty people from Mallig town in Isabela province were rushed to the Roxas District Hospital reportedly after eating agar-agar salad in a birthday party Sunday afternoon.abs-cbnNEWS.com