Indonesian president defeats nationalist to win second term
● Widodo wins second five-year term according to preliminary results
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has won a second five-year term, according to preliminary election results.
Vote counts from five independent survey groups showed that Mr Widodo has a clear election lead over former general, Prabowo Subianto.
The so-called “quick counts” from reputable survey organisations that use a sample of polling stations have been reliable in past elections.
With 50 per cent to 80 per cent of sample polling stations counted, the survey organisations showed Mr Widodo winning about 55 per cent of the vote.
Tens of millions of Indonesians cast votes in the presidential and legislative elections after a campaign that pitted the steady progress of Mr Widodo’s government against Mr Subianto’s fear-based rhetoric that predicted the country would fall apart without his strongman leadership.
The election was a huge logistical exercise with 193 million people eligible to vote, more than 800,000 polling stations and 17 million people involved in ensuring polls ran smoothly.
Helicopters, boats and horses were used to get ballots to remote and inaccessible corners of the archipelago.
Pre-election polls consistently gave a large lead of as much as 20 percentage points to Mr Widodo and his running mate, conservative cleric Ma’ruf Amin, though analysts said the race was likely to be tighter.
Mr Widodo’s campaign highlighted his progress in poverty reduction and improving Indonesia’s inadequate infrastructure with new ports, toll roads, airports and mass rapid transit. The latter became a reality last month in chronically congested Jakarta with the opening of a subway.
A strident nationalist, Mr Subianto ran a fear-based
campaign, highlighting what he sees as Indonesia’s weakness and the risk of exploitation by foreign powers or disintegration.
Mr Subianto voted not long after 8am in Bogor in West Java province, one of his strongholds of support, and told reporters he was confident of winning despite trailing in the polls.
“I promised that we will work for the good of the country,” he said. “If it’s chaos or not, it’s not coming from us. But I guarantee that we don’t want to be cheated anymore, that Indonesian people don’t want to be cheated anymore.”
Mr Widodo, who voted in Jakarta, held up a finger dipped in indelible ink to show reporters and said his next stop was playing with his grandson and eating with his wife, Iriana Widodo.
Asked if he was feeling optimistic, Mr Widodo said: “Always. We should stay optimistic at work.”
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, is an outpost of democracy in a south east Asian region of authoritarian governments and is forecast to be among the world’s biggest economies by 2030.
A second term for Mr Widodo, the first Indonesian president from outside the Jakarta elite, could further cement the country’s two decades of democratisation.
Addressing jubilant supporters a few hours after polls closed, Mr Widodo said he was aware of his lead and called for the nation to reunite after the divisions of the campaign.
“From the indications of the exit poll and also the quick counts, we can see it all, but we must be patient to wait for the official counting from the Election Commission,” he said.
Mr Subianto, who also lost to Mr Widodo in the 2014 presidential election, had not yet conceded defeat. He said his campaign’s exit poll and quick count showed he had won but urged his supporters not to cause chaos. His campaign team has alleged massive voter list irregularities but analysts say the claims are designed to undermine the election.