MANILA, Philippines (AP) – Rodrigo Duterte, the bombastic mayor of a major southern Philippine city, was poised Tuesday to become the nation’s president-elect after an incendiary and populist campaign that projected him alternatively as an emancipator and a looming dictator.
Sen. Grace Poe, one of his biggest rivals, was the first to concede Duterte’s victory in the early hours of Tuesday. And his harshest critic conceded that Duterete, known for his off-color sexual remarks and pledges to kill criminal suspects, emerged the unquestioned winner in Monday’s election.
“I will not be the party pooper at this time of a festive mood,” Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, who has filed a plunder complaint against Duterte, told The Associated Press. “I will step back, listen to his policy pronouncements. This time we don’t expect a stand-up comedy act but a president who will address the nation.”
Duterte, 71, himself has not spoken since casting his vote Monday, and remained at his home in Davao, on the southern main island of Mindanao.
Results from a semi-official count gave Duterte an unassailable lead, thrusting him into national politics for the first time after 22 years as mayor of Davao and a government prosecutor before that. In those two jobs, Duterte gained notoriety by going after criminals, although he was accused of carrying out hundreds of extra-judicial killings.