JOKO, PRABOWO DECLARE VICTORY
Unofficial results point to Joko retaining post, but rival complains of widespread cheating
PRESIDENT Joko Widodo yesterday declared victory in a presidential election to lead the world’s third-largest democracy, but his challenger also claimed he had won and complained of widespread cheating.
Unofficial results from private pollsters based on vote samples from Wednesday’s election pointed to a comfortable win for Joko, with about 55 per cent of the popular vote, giving him a lead of almost 10 percentage
points over his rival, former general Prabowo Subianto.
The counts from reputable pollsters have proved to be accurate in previous elections, though the official result would not be announced until May 22.
Joko said he had received congratulatory calls from 22 state leaders, including Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and he had invited his rival to meet.
Widodo also urged supporters to wait for official results to confirm the win.
At a separate news conference just minutes after Joko declared victory, Prabowo appeared defiant and said his team had evidence of cheating and claimed to have won 62 per cent of the popular vote based on internal polling.
“We have declared (victory) because we got evidence of widespread cheating at the village, sub-district and district levels across Indonesia,” he said, standing next to his running mate, Sandiaga Uno.
In 2014, Prabowo had also claimed victory on election day, before contesting the results at the Constitutional Court, which confirmed Joko’s win.
A spokesman for Prabowo said he would take his complaint to the Constitutional Court if the Election Commission confirmed Joko’s victory.
The commission said earlier on its website Joko had secured about 50 per cent of the vote, based on results from 808 of more than 800,000 polling stations, with Prabowo on about 45 per cent.
The Jakarta Post newspaper carried a front-page headline declaring “Five More Years” next to a picture of the president.
Alexander Raymond Arifianto, a political analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said Joko’s margin of victory meant the opposition did not appear to have a strong case to claim the election was stolen.
But he noted risks that Islamist supporters of the challenger, including the hardline Alumni 212 movement, could hit the streets to dispute the election.