Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has won the 2017 Time 100 reader poll, a part of Time Magazine’s “annual list of the most influential people in the world.”
While the poll does not determine the official lineup – Time’s editors choose the final list of honorees — the news site opened the survey back in March for their readers to determine their pick of who they believed to be the most deserving of a spot on its list of 100.
The Philippine president received 5 per cent of the total “yes” votes in the poll, which closed Sunday night.
According to Reuters, Duterte’s war on drugs has killed more than 8,000 people in the country. The controversial campaign has sparked protest from human rights groups and certain political leaders, including the Philippines’ own vice president.
Trailing closely behind Duterte in the poll were Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Pope Francis, and tech giants Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, who all received 3 per cent of the total “yes” votes.
Last year’s winner of the reader poll was American senator Bernie Sanders, with Vladimir Putin, Russia’s current president, winning in 2015.
The official list will be announced on April 20.
