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Presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr
Photo: MIKHAEL FLORES/AFP
In the Philippines, the family of the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos is about to make a comeback: According to preliminary results, the dictator's son Ferdinand Marcos Junior has won the presidential election.
According to the result of the counting of a good 90 percent of the votes announced on Tuesday morning (local time), the 64-year-old was uncatchable ahead of his main rival, the incumbent Vice President and opposition leader Leni Robredo.
Robredo could have thwarted »Bongbong«.
Although she was behind in polls, observers were convinced that the 56-year-old could win the election.
The lawyer promised one thing above all: honesty.
Apparently that wasn't enough.
Apparently high turnout
After counting a good 90 percent of the ballot papers, Marcos Junior came up with almost 30 million votes.
That was more than twice as much as Robredo.
The son of ex-dictator Ferdinand Marcos was unassailable in front.
The official final result is not expected for a few weeks.
More than 67 million eligible voters were called to the polls.
The turnout was estimated to be very high.
The election was overshadowed by violent incidents with several deaths.
Ferdinand Marcos Junior applied to succeed the controversial former President Rodrigo Duterte around three and a half decades after his father was deposed and the family exiled.
After six years of Duterte's authoritarian rule, human rights activists, Catholic Church leaders and political analysts fear that Marcos Jr. could become even more autocratic as head of state.
kim/AFP/dpa