The unprecedented Rob Ford era ended Friday as dramatically as it unfolded: Ford, the mayor whose scandals roiled city hall and captured global attention, withdrew from the mayoral election because of his abdominal tumour — and asked Toronto to vote for his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, who scrambled to register as a candidate just minutes before the deadline.

The mayor signed up to run for his old Ward 2 council seat in the riding of Etobicoke North, taking the place of his nephew, Michael Ford, who withdrew from that race to run for school trustee.

“Nobody has ever seen anything like this before,” said former mayor Mel Lastman, summarizing the reaction of residents and insiders alike. “It's nuts.”

Rob Ford's departure from the Oct. 27 mayoral election significantly changes a campaign that unsuccessful candidate David Soknacki this week described as a “referendum on Rob Ford.” If that is true, the ballot question is no longer on the ballot — though he has been replaced by a politician who may be even more polarizing and outspoken.

Doug Ford was sombre and emotional in his first speech as a candidate. Standing in front of his mother's Etobicoke house, his daughters, wife and mother behind him, he positioned himself as the inheritor of his ailing brother's legacy.

“He told me that he needed me to take the torch while he focuses on getting better,” Doug Ford said. “He told me that he couldn't bear the thought of city hall returning to the old days at the expense of the good, honest, everyday people.”

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The other two leading candidates, John Tory and Olivia Chow, differed starkly in their responses to the news. Chow declined to talk about Doug Ford, choosing to simply wish Rob Ford well. Tory immediately went on the attack, noting Doug Ford's insults about fellow councillors, the father of a man with autism and Premier Kathleen Wynne.

“I don't think Doug Ford offers Toronto more of the same. In fact, he may offer Toronto something that is worse,” Tory said.

Doug Ford, who asked for “a couple days” to spend time with his family, said he will start campaigning next week. He declined to immediately say if he plans to campaign on a platform identical to Rob Ford's.

The brothers have a complicated and sometimes acrimonious relationship that involves a rivalry they have barely concealed even while describing themselves as best friends and strenuously defending each other. Former Citytv reporter Andrew Krystal said Doug Ford told him Friday morning that he had been trying to convince Rob Ford to drop out of the race to focus on his health — but the hospitalized mayor was hesitant.

“I think it was made very quickly, on a last-minute basis,” Etobicoke Councillor Peter Leon said of the Fords' decision.

The switch involved a mad dash to and from Mount Sinai Hospital. Rob Ford had signed the necessary paperwork, but it turned out that Leon, the person hastily recruited as a notary, needed to be physically present while Ford signed. Leon, a Ford aide and two lawyers drove back to the hospital and “ran in,” Leon said.

Doug Ford faces a difficult road to victory. Rob Ford was in a distant second place in the last two polls, 12 percentage points behind Tory. Doug Ford has consistently been less popular than Rob Ford. As he takes on two well-funded, well-organized rivals who have been on the trail for six months, he must now rapidly raise his own money: he cannot use any of the donations made to Rob Ford.

Doug Ford, president of family firm Deco Labels and Tags, is both similar to and different from Rob, for whom he served as campaign manager. Doug Ford is also a fiery, folksy, gaffe-prone, oft-dishonest populist conservative who favours subways and small government. He, too, rails against “lefties” and the “gravy train.”

The first-time officeholder does not have the personal touch of his younger brother, who spent a decade establishing a reputation for returning constituents' phone calls. Nor does he have the drug-related baggage — though the Globe and Mail reported that he was a hashish dealer in the 1980s, which he has strongly denied.

He is more prone than Rob Ford to public displays of anger. He has stronger business credentials than Rob Ford but less experience in government. He has more interest in the macro-level work of a traditional mayor than the one-on-one fixing his brother favours. Former Rob Ford aide David Price, a close friend of Doug Ford, said in 2013 that the strategic efforts of the mayor's office were “all Doug Ford.”

Rob Ford had to make his momentous decision Friday without knowing the exact nature of his illness. Dr. Zane Cohen of Mount Sinai told reporters Thursday that Ford has a mass of a “fair size” in his abdomen. The results of a biopsy will not be available to Ford for a week, he said.

It could be serious: the Ford family appeared dejected on Friday night, and Doug Ford told the Toronto Sun in the morning that the mayor could be facing “a surgery and chemotherapy, and could be on his back for six to eight weeks.”

There were persistent rumours in 2012 and 2013 that Doug Ford would run in a byelection or election in the event of a Rob Ford crisis that rendered him unable to run or to compete. Lastman said he was told of a possible switcheroo weeks ago; former Rob Ford chief of staff Nick Kouvalis, now a senior Tory aide, predicted it on Twitter in mid-July.

Below is the statment issued by Rob Ford today.

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But Doug Ford had been openly gleeful about the prospect of leaving city hall and returning to his company's U.S. operation in Chicago; he has always expressed more interest in provincial politics than the mayoralty.“I'll be running away from this place in 16 months,” he said in June 2013. On Friday, asked if the switch had been in the works before this week, he said, “It was never in the works.”

Rob Ford will remain the mayor until the new mayor is confirmed on Dec. 1. He did not speak publicly on Friday. “While I'm unable to commit to the heavy schedule required for a mayoral candidate I will not turn my back on Ward 2,” he said in an email statement.“I've asked Doug to finish what we started together, so that all we've accomplished isn't washed away. I have asked Doug to run to become the next mayor of Toronto, because we need him. We cannot go backwards.”

Andray Domise, the Ward 2 candidate who now finds himself running for council against an incumbent mayor, questioned whether his new opponent can run an election campaign from a hospital bed. But Ford is an overwhelming favourite in the ward he held between 2000 and 2010 even if he cannot campaign at all.