Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held the top spot of the readers’ poll for “TIME’s Person of the Year,” with 16.2% votes as polling closed for the category.
The Bharatiya Janata Party leader and son of a tea stall-owner, who swore-in as prime minister this May gave India its first parliamentary majority after 25 years of coalition governments.
The Ferguson protesters, who took to the streets to protest the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, tread behind with 9.2% votes.
The protesters were followed by Joshua Wong the 18-year-old student activist who became the face of Hong Kong’s democracy protests with 7% votes, Nobel Prize Winner and child activist Malala Yousafzai with 4.9% votes and Ebola doctors and nurses fighting against the deadly virus with 4.5% votes.
Although TIME magazine’s editors will choose the ‘Person of the Year’, which is what goes as the cover of the annual issue of the magazine, the winner of the readers’ poll will be announced on December 8.
The annual poll, running for the past nine decades, contests between 50 people believed to have “most influenced the news this year for better or worse.”
Other candidates up for the title are US President Barack Obama, Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Chinese President Xi Jinping, US secretary of state John Kerry and former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
Among the business chiefs and artists, the candidates are Amazaon CEO Jeff Bezos, Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba founder Jack Ma, GM’s first female CEO Mary Barra, Apple CEO Tim Cook and singers Beyonce, Taylor Swift, reality star Kim Kardashian and actress Jennifer Lawrence.
