BFP, UBJP lead partial, unofficial results in BARMM elections

The Bangsamoro Federlist Party (BFP) and the United Bangsamoro Justice Party are leading the polls for regional parliamentary political parties in the first Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) elections, partial and unofficial results showed.

As of 10:14 p.m., and with 93.38% of the election returns processed, four parties have breached the 2.5% threshold to gain seats in the Bangsamoro parliament.

The BFP has 614,672 votes, or 34.8%, while the United Bangsamoro Justice Party has 571,703, or 32.6%.

The BARMM Grand Coalition has 366,073, or 20.7%, while the Rayat Democratic Party-Bangsamoro People's Democratic Party has 64,747, 3.7%.

At fifth place, the Progresibong Bangsamoro Party has 34,893 votes. It has yet to breach the threshold, and has 2.0% of the votes.

Regional parliamentary party representatives (RPPP) seats are contested in a region-wide race among registered political parties, rather than individual candidates.

Each political party must submit a list of 40 nominees, ranked in order of priority to fill the seats won based on the overall votes gathered.

Think of it like the party-list representatives in the House of Representatives, who similarly rank their first, second, third, and subsequent nominees in case they win multiple seats.

According to the Botong Bangsamoro website, as far as practicable, at least one in every three party nominees must be a woman, and no nominee can be related to another within the second degree of consanguinity or affinity.

RPPP seats are allocated to political parties proportionally based on the percentage of votes obtained by each party relative to the total votes cast in the election.

Parties need at least 2.5% of the total valid votes to qualify, according to Comelec.

If qualifying groups receive varying percentages of votes, they will be ranked from highest to lowest, and the 40 seats will be distributed proportionally based on their vote shares.

For example, if a party secures 10% of the total RPPP votes across BARMM, it would earn roughly 4 seats (or 10 percent of the 40 available seats). –NB, GMA News