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.
With 50% to 80% of sample polling stations counted, the survey organisations showed Mr Widodo winning about 55% 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.
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 inedible 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 about the results of Wednesday’s vote, Mr Widodo said: “Always. We should stay optimistic at work.”
