MANILA : The Philippines votes for a new president on Monday after an acrimonious election campaign that revealed popular disgust with the country’s ruling elite for failing to make inroads into poverty and inequality despite years of robust economic growth.
Opinion polls in the days ahead of the vote showed that Rodrigo Duterte – a city mayor whose brash challenge to the political establishment has drawn comparisons with Donald Trump – was comfortably ahead of his four rivals for the presidency.
The firebrand mayor’s single-issue campaign focused on law and order tapped into anxiety about corruption, crime and drug abuse, but his incendiary rhetoric and advocacy of extrajudicial killings brought predictions that he would be a dictator.
“Mr. Duterte’s campaign symbol is a fist — intended for lawbreakers, but seemingly also aimed at the oligarchy,” Miguel Syjuco, a respected Philippine writer, said in an opinion column last week. “The message resonates with the frustrated poor who feel let down by the government, but his fans span all classes.”
He said Duterte’s “change is coming” slogan was “the exactly right message from the completely wrong messenger”.
Manuel Roxas, the grandson of a former president and favoured candidate of outgoing President Benigno Aquino, told a recent news conference that the election was “the force of democracy against the force of dictatorship”.
Despite these concerns, global risk research firm Eurasia Group said in a report ahead of the election that regardless of who wins the Philippines is likely to continue on the pro-growth and reform-oriented path set by Aquino.
@ Agency report.
