Candidate Poised For Victory: “All Of You Who Are Into Drugs, You Sons Of B*tches, I Will Really Kill You”

Candidate Poised For Victory: “All Of You Who Are Into Drugs, You Sons Of B*tches, I Will Really Kill You”

This is a really bizarre way to encourage people to support your bid for elected office. I can’t imagine voting for a person who said these kinds of things.

drugs

From The Big Story:

A brash and tough-talking mayor who has pledged to kill suspected criminals and end crime within six months looked set to become the next president of the Philippines after taking an unassailable lead in an unofficial vote count in Monday’s elections.

The son of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos had a narrow lead in the vice presidential race.

Rodrigo Duterte, the mayor of southern Davao city, had secured more than 14.4 million votes, according to a count of 87 percent of precincts nationwide. The closest of his four main rivals, former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, had 8.6 million votes. Final results are expected Tuesday.

“We can call it now because the gap got so big relative to the maximum the No. 2 can get” of the remaining votes, said William Yu of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting. The group is accredited by the Commission on Elections to conduct the unofficial “quick count.”

A victory by Duterte would amount to a massive political shift in the Philippines. Starting as an outsider, Duterte built his popularity with radical pledges to eliminate poverty and end corruption and crime. He has a reputation for fighting crime as mayor of Davao for 22 years, but has been accused of ordering extrajudicial killings to achieve that.

On the last day of campaigning Saturday, he made clear he intends to continue his hard-line approach.

“All of you who are into drugs, you sons of bitches, I will really kill you,” Duterte, 71, a former prosecutor, told a rally. “I have no patience, I have no middle ground, either you kill me or I will kill you idiots.”

Statements such as that have won him the nickname “Duterte Harry,” a reference to the Clint Eastwood movie character “Dirty Harry” who had little regard for rules. He has also been compared to Donald Trump, the U.S. Republican presumptive presidential nominee.

Duterte is known for jokes about sex and rape, talking often about his Viagra-fueled sexual escapades, and for undiplomatic remarks about Australia, the United States and China, all key players in the country’s politics. He has threatened to dismiss the Philippine Congress and form a revolutionary government if he is confronted with uncooperative legislators.

Outgoing President Benigno Aquino III tried to discourage Filipinos from voting for Duterte over fears the mayor may endanger the country’s hard-fought democracy and squander economic gains of the last six years, when the Philippine economy grew at an average of 6.2 percent, one of the best rates in Asia.

But on election day, with opinion polls giving him the best chance to win, Duterte reached out to his opponents.

“Let us be friends,” he said at a news conference after voting in Davao. “Let us begin the process of healing.”

And I thought American elections were intense…

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