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TORONTO — Barely a month ago, businessman Doug Ford was planning to run for mayor of Toronto, the post that late brother Rob had earlier turned into a soap opera of controversy.

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But on Sunday, Ford began his first full day as chief of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative party, having narrowly triumphed Saturday in a chaotic PC leadership race, municipal politics left far behind.

His populist, plain-talking style — full of attacks on various “elites” — won out over more establishment Tory candidates, including the wife of a former federal finance minister and the daughter of a prime minister.

Fittingly for an election marked by bitter recrimination and surprise twists, however, chief rival Christine Elliott at first refused to concede. She suggested a mix-up in allocating ballots to specific ridings — as required by the party’s geographically weighted electoral-vote system — may have altered the outcome.

In a race this close, largely determined by geography, someone needs to stand up for these members

But after a lengthy meeting with Ford Sunday afternoon at a secret, Toronto-area location, Elliott announced she was conceding the race.

Noting the fast pace and unexpected turns of the election, she said in a statement late Sunday evening that her team wanted to examine an outcome that was “extremely close.”