An election official checks a ballot during counting at a polling station after voting ended during Indonesia's presidential and legislative elections in Kwamki Narama district, Mimika regency, Central Papua on Feb 14, 2024. - AFP
JAKARTA: Polls have officially closed at 1pm local time (2pm Singapore time) and the unofficial quick count of ballots is under way in Indonesia’s presidential election, in which three candidates are vying to succeed popular President Joko Widodo, who is stepping down after a decade in power.
Former special forces lieutenant-general and current Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto, touted as the front runner in various electability surveys, is locked in a race with former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan and former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo.
Prabowo, whose running mate is the president’s son Gibran Rakabuming Raka, has vowed to Widodo’s development programmes and legacy projects, including the planned relocation of the administrative capital from Jakarta to East Kalimantan.
Ganjar, who is pairing with former law and security minister Mahfud MD, has promised to improve the president’s policies in education and healthcare. Anies, who is running with veteran politician Muhaimin Iskandar, has said he would review and roll back some programmes such the capital relocation.
Millions of Indonesians have cast their ballots earlier on Feb 14 to elect not only a president and a vice-president, but also parliamentary and local representatives. In the legislative poll, thousands of lawmaker hopefuls seek to fill 580 seats in the national Parliament known as the House of Representatives, and around 20,000 seats at the regional level.
These ballots will be first tallied at the local district levels before being recounted at the national level for both presidential and legislative elections.
Under Indonesia’s elections law, the vote counting process may take up to 35 days to be completed, given the large number of eligible voters of around 205 million and the vast territory. The General Elections Commission has said official results are expected to be released by March 20 at the latest.
Official results are not expected to differ significantly from quick count tallies.
Since they were first introduced during the inaugural presidential election in 1999, quick counts conducted by polling agencies and research institutions have become an alternative credible method to predict the results in the world’s biggest single-day elections.
Among those conducting the vote sampling this time are Jakarta-based think-tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies and political consultancy Cyrus Network, as well as Litbang Kompas, the research arm of Kompas daily. These are considered to be among the most reliable and independent.
Thousands of field workers and volunteers have been deployed to polling stations in 38 provinces nationwide to take vote samples.
By law, early vote sampling counts can only be announced two hours after polls close in western Indonesia, where Jakarta is located, or 3pm local time (4pm Singapore time).
Widodo defeated Prabowo in the 2014 and 2019 presidential elections. For his re-election in 2019, Widodo secured 55.5 per cent of the votes against Prabowo’s 44.5 per cent. The latter’s protest over the result led to two days of deadly riots in Jakarta, claiming at least eight lives and leaving hundreds more injured. - The Straits Times/ANN
