Anti-establishment firebrand candidate Rodrigo Duterte had a massive lead in the Philippine presidential election vote count yesterday, a poll monitor said, after an incendiary campaign dominated by his profanity-laced threats to kill criminals.
Duterte, the longtime mayor of the southern city of Davao, had hypnotized millions with his vows of brutal but quick solutions to the nation’s twin plagues of crime and poverty, which many believed had worsened despite strong economic growth in recent years.
His big lead in pre-election surveys appeared to be carried into election day, according to the PPCRV, the Catholic Church-run poll monitor accredited by the government with tallying the votes.
Photo: EPA
Duterte had 9,039,612 million votes, or 39.02 percent, with just over half of the total counted, according to PPCRV.
Duterte gave a cautious assessment when asked on CNN Philippines about earlier results that showed him taking a big lead.
“I ain’t there until I am there,” he said. “If it is my destiny to be there then I accept it.”
Senator Grace Poe was in second place with 22.19 percent, and administration candidate Manuel Roxas II trailed closely in third, according to the PPCRV.
In the Philippines, a winner is decided simply by whomever gets the most votes.
National media had not called the election for Duterte because it was unclear where the votes tallied so far were from and a region with heavy support for another candidate might not have yet been counted.
Duterte, a pugnacious 71-year-old, surged from outsider to the top of surveys with cuss-filled vows to kill tens of thousands of criminals, threats to establish one-man rule if lawmakers disobeyed him, and promises to embrace communist rebels.
He also boasted repeatedly about his Viagra-fueled affairs, while promising voters his mistresses would not cost a lot because he kept them in cheap boarding houses and took them to short-stay hotels for sex.
Duterte caused further disgust in international diplomatic circles with a joke that he wanted to rape a “beautiful” Australian missionary who was killed in a 1989 Philippine prison riot, and by calling the pope a “son of a whore.”
In his final rally on Saturday, Duterte repeated to tens of thousands of cheering fans his plans to end crime within six months of starting his presidency.
“Forget the laws on human rights,” said Duterte, who has been accused of running vigilante death squads in Davao. “If I make it to the presidential palace, I will do just what I did as mayor. You drug pushers, hold-up men and do-nothings, you better go out. Because as the mayor, I’d kill you.”
Another key message of Duterte’s campaign was his pledge to take on the elite, even though his vice presidential running mate was from one of the nation’s richest and most powerful families.
The Philippines has an infamous culture of political violence, and at least 10 people were killed on election day. Fifteen people had been killed in pre-election shootings and bombings, according to police.
However, authorities described yesterday’s violence as isolated incidents and said that the elections had been peaceful overall.
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