MANILA, Philippines — A brash and tough-talking mayor who has pledged to kill suspected criminals and end crime within six months looked set to become the next president of the Philippines after taking an unassailable lead in an unofficial vote count in Monday's elections.

The son of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos had a narrow lead in the vice presidential race.

Rodrigo Duterte, the mayor of southern Davao city, had secured more than 14.4 million votes, according to a count of 87 percent of precincts nationwide. The closest of his four main rivals, former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, had 8.6 million votes. Final results are expected Tuesday.

"We can call it now because the gap got so big relative to the maximum the No. 2 can get" of the remaining votes, said William Yu of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting. The group is accredited by the Commission on Elections to conduct the unofficial "quick count."

A victory by Duterte would amount to a massive political shift in the Philippines. Starting as an outsider, Duterte built his popularity with radical pledges to eliminate poverty and end corruption and crime. He has a reputation for fighting crime as mayor of Davao for 22 years, but has been accused of ordering extrajudicial killings to achieve that.

On the last day of campaigning Saturday, he made clear he intends to continue his hard-line approach.

"All of you who are into drugs, you sons of bitches, I will really kill you," Duterte, 71, a former prosecutor, told a rally. "I have no patience, I have no middle ground, either you kill me or I will kill you idiots."

Statements such as that have won him the nickname "Duterte Harry," a reference to the Clint Eastwood movie character "Dirty Harry" who had little regard for rules. He has also been compared to Donald Trump, the U.S. Republican presumptive presidential nominee.

Duterte is known for jokes about sex and rape, talking often about his Viagra-fueled sexual escapades, and for undiplomatic remarks about Australia, the United States and China, all key players in the country's politics. He has threatened to dismiss the Philippine Congress and form a revolutionary government if he is confronted with uncooperative legislators.

Outgoing President Benigno Aquino III tried to discourage Filipinos from voting for Duterte over fears the mayor may endanger the country's hard-fought democracy and squander economic gains of the last six years, when the Philippine economy grew at an average of 6.2 percent, one of the best rates in Asia.

But on election day, with opinion polls giving him the best chance to win, Duterte reached out to his opponents.

"Let us be friends," he said at a news conference after voting in Davao. "Let us begin the process of healing."

Among the other presidential candidates, Sen. Grace Poe had 8.1 million votes and Vice President Jejomar Binay had 4.8 million, according to the partial unofficial results. Poe conceded defeat early Tuesday.

In the vice presidential race, Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of the former dictator who ruled the Philippines from 1972 until he was ousted in 1986 in a "people power" revolt, led with 12.6 million votes in the unofficial count. He was followed closely by Rep. Leni Robredo, who had 12.5 million votes.

Vice presidents are elected separately from presidents in the Philippines.

"I am feeling that by all indications we should be successful today," Marcos said in a statement.

Aquino, whose parents were democracy champions who helped topple the senior Marcos, also campaigned against Marcos Jr., who has never clearly apologized for economic plunder and widespread human rights abuses under his father.

Aquino warned that Duterte could be a dictator in the making and urged voters not to support him. Filipinos have been hypersensitive to potential threats to democracy since they ousted the elder Marcos.

Aside from the presidential and vice presidential races, more than 45,000 candidates contested 18,000 national, congressional and local positions in elections that have traditionally been tainted by violence and accusations of cheating.

About 55 million Filipinos registered to vote at 36,000 polling places across the archipelago of more than 7,100 islands, including in a small fishing village in a Philippine-occupied island in the disputed South China Sea.

Weary of poverty, poor public services, crime, corruption and insurgencies in the hinterlands, voters in the nation of 100 million people looked for radical change at the top.

Duterte tapped into that discontent, pledging to end crime in half a year, even though police said it was impossible. The other candidates stuck to less audacious reforms.

He has not articulated an overall foreign policy, but has described himself as a socialist wary of the U.S.-Philippine security alliance. He has worried members of the armed forces by saying that communist rebels could play a role in his government.

When the Australian and U.S. ambassadors criticized a joke he made about wanting to be the first to have raped an Australian missionary who was gang-raped and killed by inmates in a 1989 jail riot, he told them to shut up.

He said he would talk with China about territorial disputes in the South China Sea but if nothing happened, he would sail to an artificial island newly created by China and plant the Philippine flag there. China, he said, could shoot him and turn him into a national hero.

All of Duterte's opponents have accused him of making remarks that threaten the rule of law and democracy.

Analysts predicted that a Duterte win would weaken the Philippine peso, given his uncertain economic platform. The jitters have affected the Philippine stock market, which fell Friday — the last day of trading before Monday's election holiday — for the 10th time in 11 days.

"The market is obviously emotional and the stronger emotion is usually fear rather than hope," said Jose Vistan, research head at AB Capital Securities Inc. "A big chunk of the reason why we're behaving the way we are is obviously because of the elections."

"Duterte is completely out of the system, he's out of the box," said political science professor Richard Heydarian of De La Salle University in Manila, adding that in the mayor's portrayal of social problems, "there is a gap between the rhetoric and reality but it's working, it's creating panic among a lot of people and rallying them behind Duterte."

Story: Jim Gomez and Teresa Cerejano / Associated Press

PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea on Monday was expelling a BBC journalist it had detained days earlier for allegedly "insulting the dignity" of the authoritarian country, while it continued to keep other foreign media away from the first-in-decades ruling party congress they had been invited to attend.

Rupert Wingfield-Hayes was not among the scores of foreign media covering the Workers' Party congress; he had covered an earlier trip of Nobel laureates and had been scheduled to leave Friday. Instead, he was stopped at the airport, detained and questioned.

O Ryong Il, secretary-general of the North's National Peace Committee, said the journalist's news coverage distorted facts and "spoke ill of the system and the leadership of the country." He said Wingfield-Hayes wrote an apology, was being expelled Monday and would never be admitted into the country again.

The BBC says Wingfield-Hayes was detained Friday along with producer Maria Byrne and cameraman Matthew Goddard, and that all were taken to the Pyongyang airport.

More than 100 foreign journalists are in the capital for North Korea's first party congress in 36 years, though they have been prevented from actually covering the proceedings and the more than 3,400 delegates. They've had to depend on reports from state media, which reports event hours later or even the next day. Officials have kept the foreign media busy with trips around Pyongyang to show them places it wants them to see.

Foreign journalists leave a venue after being told that coverage plans had changed until further notice on Sunday, May 8, 2016, in Pyongyang, North Korea. Photo: Wong Maye-E / Associated Press

The Korean Central News Agency said Monday that the congress was to enter its fourth day. On Sunday, the congress adopted a resolution to strive toward a more prosperous and modern economy and stressed that it will push for the peaceful reunification of Korean Peninsula, but warned that if Seoul "opts for a war" its military will mercilessly wipe out all opposition.

Also Sunday, leader Kim Jong Un delivered a three-hour speech to delegates to review the country's situation and progress since the last congress was held in 1980, before Kim was born.

In his speech, Kim announced a five-year economic plan, the first one made public since the 1980s, when his grandfather, "eternal president" and national founder Kim Il Sung, was in power.

The speech, in which he said North Korea was a responsible nuclear state that will not use its nuclear weapons first unless its sovereignty was threatened, underscores Kim's dual focus on building up the military while trying to kick-start the North's economy, which has seen some growth in recent years but remains hamstrung by international sanctions over its nuclear program.

Walking a fine balance between the two, he said the North is willing to develop friendly relations even with countries that had in the past been hostile toward it — a possible overture to the United States.

But he made clear that the North has no intention of unilaterally giving up its nuclear program or bending to international pressure aimed at forcing its regime into decline or collapse.

Kim said North Korea "will sincerely fulfill its duties for the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and work to realize the denuclearization of the world," but that statement is predicated on other countries — again, mainly the United States — also giving up their weapons, a highly unlikely scenario.

On South Korea, Kim Jong Un stressed the need for talks to ease cross-border animosities and emphasized reunification under a federal system, a decades-old proposal that would largely keep the North's brand of socialism intact that has received no traction with Seoul.

"But if the South Korean authorities opt for a war, persisting in the unreasonable 'unification of social systems,' we will turn out in the just war to mercilessly wipe out the anti-reunification forces and achieve the historic cause of national reunification, long-cherished desire of all Koreans," he said.

South Korea's Unification Ministry on Monday dismissed Kim's offer for talks as "propaganda" that lacks sincerity. Spokesman Jeong Joon Hee told reporters that talks can resume only when North Korea demonstrates how sincere it's about nuclear disarmament.

Though North Korea appears to be making significant progress in developing what it calls a nuclear deterrent, its economy is still recovering from the collapse of the Soviet Union and its East bloc allies and a massive famine in the 1990s. It depends heavily on trade with China and has fallen light years behind its southern rival.

Kim identified a number of key areas, including the country's power supply, agriculture and light-manufacturing production, as critical parts of the program. Kim stressed that the country needs to increase its international trade and engagement in the global economy, but didn't announce any significant reforms or plans to adopt capitalist-style marketization.

Still remaining on the agenda of the congress, which gathers more than 3,400 delegates at the ornate April 25 House of Culture, are elections to give Kim the party's top post — he is already its first secretary, and his father posthumously holds the title of "eternal general-secretary" — and for other party leadership positions.

Though no date has been announced, and surprises can never be ruled out, the congress was expected to go on for a couple more days.

Mass rallies will likely be held to mark its conclusion in a celebratory fashion.

Story: Eric Talmadge / Associated Press