MANILA (AFP) -
Mass murder
advocate Rodrigo Duterte heads into Saturday's final rallies of an
extraordinary Philippine presidential campaign as the shock favourite,
but with rivals still having a chance to counter his profanity-laced
populist tirades.
Duterte, a pugnacious 71-year-old, has rocked
the political establishment with cuss-filled vows to kill tens of
thousands of criminals, threats to establish one-man rule if lawmakers
disobey him, and promises to embrace communist rebels.
He has also
caused disgust in international diplomatic circles with a joke that he
wanted to rape a "beautiful" Australian missionary who was killed in a
1989 Philippine prison riot, and boasted repeatedly on the campaign
trail about his Viagra-fuelled affairs.
President Benigno Aquino,
whose mother led the democracy movement that ousted dictator Ferdinand
Marcos a generation ago, has warned the nation is at risk of succumbing
to another dictatorship.
But Duterte's anti-establishment rhetoric
and promises of quick fixes to deep-rooted problems have proved
hypnotic for millions of Filipinos, and he heads into Monday's election
with an 11-percentage-point lead over his rivals, according to the
latest survey.
Senator Grace Poe, the adopted daughter of a late
movie star, and establishment bedrock Mar Roxas, are tied in second
place. Vice President Jejomar Binay, the early favourite, has fallen to
fourth place under the weight of a barrage of corruption allegations.
While
Duterte, the long-time mayor of the southern city of Davao, is
undeniably the favourite, he lacks the sophisticated political machinery
of some of his rivals and is not guaranteed victory, according to
Manila-based political analyst Earl Parreno.
Roxas, a US-educated
investment banker who served as interior and transport secretaries in
Aquino's administration, is in the strongest position to challenge,
Parreno, from the Institute of Political and Electoral Reforms, told
AFP.
Roxas can expect a boost of about five percentage points from
the machinery of the Liberal Party, which can use its money and
influence to get people into voting booths, according to Parreno.
"We
also still have the undecided. It's going to be a very, very close
fight, a neck and neck fight, between Duterte and Roxas," Parreno said.
The
presidential candidates will make their final pitches to voters on
Saturday with rallies in Manila that are expected to attract tens of
thousands of people. Politicians are not allowed to campaign on the
final day before elections.
- Anti-Duterte alliance -
In a
sign of the nervousness that Duterte will win, Aquino -- who is limited
by the constitution to a single term of six years -- made an
extraordinary plea on Friday night for the other candidates to unite
against the frontrunner.
Under the proposed anti-Duterte alliance,
one or more of the other candidates would withdraw from the race to
back the person with the best chance of winning.
Roxas said he was
willing to discuss the proposal with Poe. However Poe immediately
rejected any suggestion that she should withdraw, and there were no
signs late on Friday night that an 11th-hour partnership would be
forced.
In a similar manner to US Republican presidential
candidate Donald Trump, Duterte's blistering campaign has upended
conventional political wisdom, with controversies that pundits said
would doom him instead only fuelling his popularity.
However Trump's trash-talk has been tame in comparison.
Duterte
has promised to end crime nationally within the first six months of his
presidency, with the seemingly impossible task to be achieved by
ordering security forces to bypass an inefficient judicial system and go
on an unprecedented killing spree.
He said tens of thousands of suspected criminals would die in the crackdown.
In
a speech last week to the nation's most prominent business club,
Duterte acknowledged his tactics could amount to mass murder but that he
would pardon himself at the end of his term if he was found guilty of
such crimes.
"Pardon given to Rodrigo Duterte for the crime of
multiple murder, signed Rodrigo Duterte," he said, describing the
document he would write for himself.
Human rights groups have warned his comments are not merely rhetoric.
They
accuse him of running vigilante squads in Davao that have killed more
than 1,000 suspected criminals. At times he has boasted about his
involvement, and said 1,700 people were killed, but on other occasions
denied any links to the vigilantes.
by Karl Malakunas
© 2016 AFP
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