Indonesia counts votes, ex-general favored to win

JAKARTA: Ballot-counting was underway in Indonesia on Wednesday after millions of people voted for a new president, with Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto the frontrunner to lead Southeast Asia’s biggest economy despite concerns over his human rights record.

Polls project Subianto, a military chief during the Suharto dictatorship a generation ago, to secure a majority and replace popular outgoing president Joko Widodo, whom observers claim indirectly supported his campaign.

The 72-year-old is the clear favorite after a campaign mixing populist rhetoric with pledges to continue the policies of Widodo, who has presided over steady economic growth but reached the constitutional two-term limit.

“The hope is to win,” Subianto told reporters before voting in the southern city of Bogor.

Nearly 205 million people were eligible to vote for Subianto or his rivals — former governors Anies Baswedan of Jakarta and Ganjar Pranowo of Central Java — in what is just the fifth presidential election since the end of Suharto’s dictatorship in 1998.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. (local time) in the easternmost region of Papua and closed at 1 p.m. at the other end of the country, in jungle-clad Sumatra.

A logistical feat involving more than 800,000 polling stations and 20,000 seats up for grabs saw planes, helicopters, speedboats and even cows used to cart ballots around the sprawling archipelago of nearly 280 million people.

In Papua’s Timika city, officials inspected makeshift polling stations built from logs, metal sheets and palm leaves as voters arrived to eye candidate lists.

In the capital Jakarta, a thunderstorm deluged 34 polling stations, the city’s disaster mitigation agency reported.

General Election Commissioner Yulianto Sudrajat told Agence France-Presse (AFP) polling stations that opened late because of bad weather could stay open longer due to the “extenuating circumstances.”

“The service will be available, as long as there are still ballots,” he said.

Official results are not expected until March, but so-called quick counts from government-approved pollsters — shown to be reliable in the past — were expected to give an indication of the winner later in the day.

‘Decisive leader’

Under election laws, the preliminary results cannot be published before 3 p.m., but are expected soon after.

Consultant Debbie Sianturi was one of those determined to vote earlier in the day.

“I want to have a leader that will continue the democracy,” the 57-year-old said.

Another said Subianto’s experience made him a popular candidate.

“He has a military background, so I think he will be a decisive leader,” said Afhary Firnanda, a 28-year-old office worker in Jakarta.

Subianto needs to claim more than 50 percent of the overall vote and at least a fifth of ballots cast in over half the country’s 38 provinces to secure the presidency.

If he falls short, a second-round vote will be held in June.

Baswedan, seen as the favorite to challenge Subianto in that event, told supporters to help ensure a fair vote in the graft-riddled country, where voters dip their fingers in halal ink to prevent double voting.

“Come back to the voting station, monitor the vote count,” he told reporters.

Pranowo, who entered election day last in the polls after once being the frontrunner, said he hoped for a clean election.

“Today is the best time for all to return to the good path of democracy,” he told reporters.

Democracy commitment

Another key factor in Subianto’s popularity is having Widodo’s eldest son, 36-year-old Gibran Rakabuming Raka, as his running mate, a move that has raised eyebrows.

In October, Indonesia’s thenchief justice Anwar Usman, who is Widodo’s brother-in-law, changed the rules that had barred candidates younger than 40 years old from running for high office.

Widodo enjoys near-record approval ratings after two terms of solid economic growth and relatively stable politics in the nation’s young democracy.

But some legal experts and rights groups have accused Widodo of improperly using government funds to support Subianto, who has rejected accusations of impropriety.

Subianto was dismissed from the military in 1998 over accusations that he ordered the abduction of democracy activists at the end of Suharto’s rule, but he denied the accusations and was never charged.

He has since rehabilitated his image, thanks in part to a savvy social media campaign targeting Indonesia’s youth that portrayed him as a “cuddly grandpa.”