{Ruling party candidate concedes as unofficial results give mayor Rodrigo Duterte clear lead in presidential poll.}
The ruling party candidate in the Philippines’ presidential election has conceded defeat as controversial mayor Rodrigo Duterte is heading for a resounding victory.
Manuel “Mar” Roxas addressed supporters on Tuesday as unofficial results put Duterte ahead by an insurmountable 6.1 million votes.
“It is clear Mayor Duterte will be the next president,” Roxas said. “I wish you success.”
Grace Poe, who trailed third in the race, said Duterte’s lead reflected the will of the people.
“I respect the result of the election,” she said. “We fought hard.”
Senator Poe was the leading candidate until Duterte belatedly joined the race. His straight talk and brash manner won over voters.
Al Jazeera’s Marga Ortigas said many Filipinos had grown frustrated during six years under President Benigno Aquino.
“They were years of broad economic growth but that prosperity didn’t trickle down fast enough. Aquino and his administration were criticised as too elite, too impersonal, and out of touch,” she said.
Tapping into that sentiment, Duterte, mayor of the southern city of Davao, emerged as the frontrunner by brazenly defying political tradition, much as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has done in the US.
The mayor’s single-issue campaign focusing on law and order chimed with popular anxiety about corruption, crime and drug abuse, but for many his incendiary rhetoric and talk of extrajudicial killings echo the country’s authoritarian past.
While authorities described the overall conduct of the elections as peaceful, police said at least 10 people died across the country in election-day violence as gunmen attacked polling stations, ambushed vehicles and stole vote-counting machines.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines National Election Monitoring Center said in a statement that they monitored 22 election-related violent incidents.
In the worst attack, seven people were shot dead in an ambush before dawn in Rosario, a town just outside Manila known for political violence, Chief Inspector Jonathan del Rosario, spokesman for a national police election monitoring task force, told the AFP news agency.
Another 15 people were killed in election-related violence in the run-up to the polls.
Many areas of the Philippines are dominated by feuding political families. Security forces were on high alert for the vote and citizens’ groups were watching polling centres closely.
There were several reports of electronic voting machine hitches, and voting was extended in several districts after delays in the opening of polling centres.
Al Jazeera’s Wayne Hay, reporting from Duterte’s homebase, Davao, said his supporters see him as an authentic man of action.
“He is very popular here. One of the reasons he is so popular is his crackdown on crime,” he said. “This used to be regarded as one of the most dangerous cities in Philippines, but now it’s regarded perhaps as one of the safest.
“His supporters, people who are voting for him, believe he should take a lot of credit for that.”
But critics disapprove of Duterte’s brash manner and question his ties to vigilante killings. They also claim the controversial mayor’s election pledges are unrealistic.
OPINION: The Philippines’ autocratic nostalgia
“He made some astonishing claims that in the first three to six months of office he is going to solve major problems, like crime and corruption,” Richard Heydarian of De La Salle University told Al Jazeera.
“Of course no experts will agree with him.”
More than half of the population of 100 million people were registered to vote in the election to choose a president, vice president, 300 politicians and about 18,000 local government officials.
Leave a Reply