Pagadian City – Prof. Nur Misuari ends his leadership as Chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) after Cotabato City Mayor Muslimen Sema elected as new Chairman by the Central Committee during their 3-days meeting held here at Bay Plaza Hotel.

At least more than 400 delegates coming from the Cotabato, Lanao del Sur and Norte, Zamboanga del Sur, Basilan and Jolo, Sulu attended the MNLF Central Committee meeting hosted by Zamboanga del Sur State Revolutionary Committee conducted on April 1, 2 &3, 2008. “Actually their was no opponent when Muslimen Sema was nominated and seconded as the new chairman of the MNLF and unanimously approved by the MNLF central committee,” Indana, Sulu Mayor Alvarez Isnaji told this reporter in an exclusive interview.

During the meeting, Mayor Isnaji was proclaimed by the MNLF Central Committee as the common candidate of the MNLF for Governor in the coming Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) on August 11, 2008. “Actually, the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) required the MNLF to have a common candidate for Governor in the ARMM and I am happy that I was chosen,” Mayor Isnaji disclosed.

In the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) issue April 4, 2008, Lawyer Ulka Ulama, one of the legal counsels of Misuari, said he would not recognize the new leaderships. “I only support Misuari as the legitimate and the only recognized chair all over the world,” Ulama said.

The MNLF was born in Sulu not Central Mindanao, Ulama stressed.

Barahim Talib, provincial administrator of Basilan, also said that Sema’s leadership is only confined in Cotabato City where he is the mayor. Talib said the “new” MNLF leaders’ move was in preparation for ARMM elections in August, PDI reports said.

Talib said MNLF leaders and members from the provinces of Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-tawi, snubbed the assembly as protest to those who mostly came from Central Mindanao.

Ustadz Zain Jali, chair of the MNLF’s Bansamoro Peoples’ Congress, also slammed the meeting. Jali who had just arrived from Senegal where he attended the Organization of the Islamic Conference meeting representing Misuari, said what Sema and his group “do not have the influence over the Tausogs (muslim tribes of Sulu).

“Sema, in the first place, has never been a mujahidden (fighter); his late brother Ibrahim was,” he said. But Sema said he had expected such resistance ffrom the other members. “But I was chosen by the council of 15 composed of 80 senior leaders and 300 field commanders,” he said.

Last update : 08-05-2008 15:11

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