TEHRAN, Apr 17 -Joko Widodo appeared to be heading for victory in Indonesia’s presidential election on Wednesday as “quick count” results from polling stations were posted, in line with opinion polls that had predicted a second five-year term for the low-key reformist.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -Data from six private pollsters - based on partial counts of vote samples - showed that Widodo was winning just over half of the vote and his challenger, former general Prabowo Subianto, was between 5.5 and 11.4 percentage points behind him.
The best numbers for the president came from the Jakarta-based pollster CSIS, which put Widodo at 55.7 percent and Prabowo at 44.3 percent, after more than three-quarters of its sample had been counted.
“Enough data has entered to depict a clear picture,” said Kevin O’Rourke, a political analyst and author of the Indonesia-focused newsletter Reformasi Weekly.
“The victory for Widodo is not resounding, as he failed to attain the psychological 60 percent level that had seemed within reach. Prabowo performed better than expected, which may embolden him to run yet again in 2024, if he is sufficiently fit,” O’Rourke said.
A former furniture-maker who grew up in a riverside slum and the first national leader to come from outside the political and military elite. Popularly known as Jokowi, his everyman image resonated in 2014 with voters tired of the old guard.
That election was also a contest with Prabowo, former son-in-law of military strongman Suharto who was overthrown in 1998.
The popular vote gap between the two men five years ago was about 6 percentage points.
The eight-hour vote on Wednesday for both the presidency and legislature seats across a country that stretches more than 5,000 km (3,000 miles) from its western to eastern tips was both a Herculean logistical feat and testimony to the resilience of democracy two decades after authoritarianism was defeated.
The poll followed a campaign dominated by economic issues but was also marked by the growing influence of conservative Islam in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority nation.
Source: Reuters
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