ILIGAN CITY?Unidentified armed men ambushed and killed a mayoral candidate for the Nov. 6 special elections in Tugaya, Lanao del Sur, early morning Friday.

Four others were seriously wounded, according to Col. Jed Motus, commander of the Army?s 65th Infantry Battalion.

Alimatar Guro Alim was on his way home, along with four escorts, after attending the Eid?l Fitr prayers in Marawi City when ambushed, Motus said.

His four escorts engaged the armed men in a firefight but were seriously wounded.

Motus said the police were still investigating but there were suspicions the incident had something to do with a grudge that Alim was involved in but did not discount politics as another motive.

Alim became the first casualty as the special elections scheduled for some areas of Lanao del Sur, following the failure of polling there due to violent incidents in May, draw near.

Alim was seeking a fresh mandate as Tugaya mayor in a nine-way race that pitted him against candidates belonging to two large political families.

The Tugaya balloting was marred by violence, prompting the Commission on Elections to declare failure of the polls in several of its clustered precincts.

A May 24 memorandum to the Comelec from lawyer Josllyn Demesa, then acting Lanao del Sur election supervisor, cited four clustered precincts in three Tugaya barangays where there was failure of balloting.

These consist of 1,215 voters that were thought to ?affect the result of elections.?

Fresh voting

At that point, Alim was in second place behind rival Mangawan Balindong, who had a margin of more than 800 votes.

In a subsequent resolution, the Comelec on Aug. 17 set aside the election results in Tugaya and ordered a fresh townwide balloting.

The Comelec said the new order effectively voided the earlier vote tallies garnered by all candidates for all positions at stake.

The same resolution also decreed that the balloting ?shall involve national and local elective positions.?

Tugaya has 10,078 registered voters in 24 clustered precincts.

Meanwhile, a man was killed while three others, including a 9-year-old boy, were hit by stray bullets when revelers fired guns into the air early Friday.

Boyet Potenciano, 35, and a resident of Barangay Salimbao, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao, was killed after a stray bullet hit his head at 6 a.m. Friday.

He was rushed by neighbors to the hospital but he died without receiving any treatment.

A Grade 5 pupil of Barangay Salimbao, also in Sultan Kudarat, was injured in the ankle by another wayward bullet.

The other victims suffered minor injuries, the police said. Richel Umel and Ryan Rosauro, with a report from Edwin Fernandez, Inquirer Mindanao