Philippine leader Duterte’s preferred successor Christopher Go quits presidential race
- The senator, who entered the contest for the top job two days before the November 15 deadline, said this is ‘not yet my time’
- His sudden exit narrows the field of candidates vying to replace Duterte, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a second six-year term
Senator Christopher “Bong” Go, a close aide to the president, entered the contest for the country’s highest office two days before the November 15 deadline, after previously registering for the vice presidential race.
His sudden exit narrows the field of candidates vying to replace Duterte, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a second six-year term. He is running for the Senate.
“My family doesn’t want it either so I thought maybe this is not yet my time,” Go told reporters.
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Go said his decision to withdraw was also to avoid causing “more problems” for Duterte, who he professed to love “more than as a father”.
“I remain loyal to him and I promise to be with him forever,” Go said.
“In the past few days I realised that my heart and my mind are contradicting my own actions.”
“From the very start he has launched a lukewarm campaign and it’s very obvious that he was just thrust into that job by President Duterte,” said Jean Franco, a political-science professor at the University of the Philippines.
The son and namesake of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos has a commanding lead in the race, according to a recent survey by respected polling outfit Social Weather Stations.
Marcos Jnr was followed by incumbent vice-president and Duterte critic Leni Robredo, celebrity mayor Francisco Domagoso and boxing great Manny Pacquiao.
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Duterte has been an ally of the controversial Marcos family, which had gone into exile in the US after the patriarch’s humiliating downfall in 1986.
But recently Duterte has been publicly critical of Marcos Jnr, describing him as a “weak leader … saddled with baggage”.
Sara Duterte, his daughter, had been widely expected to run for president.
But she has filed her candidacy for vice-president, a position which holds very little power, and formed an alliance with Marcos Jnr.
Go’s exit from the “tight election race” could strengthen the “political force” of Marcos Jnr and Sara, said Franco.
But she doubted that Duterte would endorse Marcos Jnr for his job.
Go’s decision also comes after a tumultuous week when many of the leading presidential and vice-presidential candidates took drug tests after Duterte accused an unnamed candidate of snorting cocaine.