Firebrand city mayor Rodrigo Duterte looked virtually certain to become the Philippines' next president as election results poured in on Monday, confirmation that the political outsider's pledges to crush crime and corruption had resonated with voters.
Five hours after polling stations had closed, a rolling ballot count by an election commission-accredited watchdog showed that Duterte had about 39 percent of the votes cast. An exit poll of a small number of voters showed a similar lead.
Asked by a television interviewer what he thought about his apparent victory, Duterte gave a puzzling answer.
"Sometimes I'm victorious and the winner, sometimes there's always losing and being sad, sometimes being sick and healthy," he told CNN Philippines, slouched in a chair and dressed casually in a checked, short-sleeve shirt.
"That is how the universe is being played every day."
The 71-year-old's truculent defiance of political tradition has drawn comparisons with U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, as have his references to his libido.
His man-of-the-people demeanor tapped into popular disgust with the political establishment over its failure to tackle poverty and inequality despite several uninterrupted years of robust economic growth.
His incendiary rhetoric and advocacy of extrajudicial killings to stamp out crime and drugs have, however, alarmed many who hear echoes of the Southeast Asian country's authoritarian past.
The election numbers reported by the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) had, by 1420 GMT (10:20 a.m. EDT), accounted for about 70 percent of the 54 million registered Filipino voters.
Duterte had 12.1 million votes, with Senator Grace Poe and the government's candidate, Manuel Roxas, far behind with about 6.8 million each.
The PPCRV count is not official so confirmation of Duterte's victory looked likely to come from his rivals conceding defeat.
credit Reuters
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