Presidential election
Ex-General Prabowo clearly ahead in Indonesian election
Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto casts his ballot in Bojong Koneng. photo
© Vincent Thian/AP/dpa
In the presidential election in Indonesia, the favorite Prabowo is clearly ahead. If the numbers are confirmed, the ex-general wouldn’t even have to go into a runoff election.
His opponents – the former governor of Jakarta and ex-education minister Anies Baswedan (54) and the governor of the Central Java province Ganjar Pranowo (55) – are far behind with around 24 percent and 17 percent.
In the island kingdom, so-called “quick counts” are carried out after an election. These rapid counts are based on random samples of ballots from polling stations across the country. However, these figures from the various opinion research institutes, which are published in all major Indonesian media, are not official. The first official results are not expected until the evening local time.
Even beforehand, Prabowo was considered the clear favorite to succeed the popular President Joko Widodo, also known as Jokowi. He has been head of state and government since 2014, but was not allowed to run again after two terms in office. Under his presidency, Indonesia has developed into a stable democracy and an emerging economic power.
Prabowo, on the other hand, is accused of human rights violations during the Suharto dictatorship in the 1980s and 90s. However, he was able to score points particularly with young voters with a clever social media campaign.
In the huge country with its around 17,000 islands, around 205 million people were called to vote. A third of them are younger than 30 years. With 274 million inhabitants, the G20 country is the third largest democracy and the largest Muslim country in the world.