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Opinion

Strongman Duterte's COVID-19 failings usher in new generation of leaders

Dynamic young mayors like Vico Sotto and Isko Moreno are the future

| Philippines
Isko Moreno, pictuerd in August 2019: the meteoric rise shows that a leader can be popular without being populist.   © LightRocket/Getty Images

Richard Heydarian is an Asia-based academic, columnist and author of "The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt Against Elite Democracy" and the "The Indo-Pacific: Trump, China and the New Struggle for Global Mastery."

If 2016 was the year global populism surged, with Brexit and the elections of Donald Trump in the U.S. and Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, 2020 might be the year it collapses, as strongmen preside over disastrous responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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