Indonesia Votes For President, Ex-general Subianto The Favourite

Jakarta, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Feb, 2024) Polling stations closed in Indonesia Wednesday after millions of people voted for a new president, with Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto the frontrunner to lead Southeast Asia's biggest economy despite concerns over his human rights record.

Polls project Subianto -- a military chief during the Suharto dictatorship a generation ago -- to secure a majority and replace popular outgoing president Joko Widodo, who observers claim indirectly supported his campaign.

The 72-year-old is the clear favourite after a campaign mixing populist rhetoric with pledges to continue the policies of Widodo, who has presided over steady economic growth but reached the constitutional two-term limit.

"The hope is to win," Subianto told reporters before voting in the city of Bogor.

"Come to the voting station... cast your votes according to your conscience."

Nearly 205 million people were eligible to vote for Subianto or his rivals -- former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan and former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo -- in what is just the fifth presidential election since the end of Suharto's dictatorship in 1998.

Polls opened at 7:00 am (2200 GMT) in the easternmost region of Papua and closed at 01:00 pm (0600 GMT) at the other end of the country in jungle-clad Sumatra.

A logistical feat involving more than 800,000 polling stations and 20,000 seats up for grabs saw planes, helicopters, speedboats and even cows used to cart ballots around the sprawling archipelago of nearly 280 million people.

In Papua's Timika city, officials inspected makeshift polling stations built from logs, metal sheets and palm leaves as voters arrived to eye candidate lists.

In the capital Jakarta, a thunderstorm deluged 34 polling stations, according to the city's disaster mitigation agency.

Workers wearing shirts that read "not voting is not an option" relocated some stations where ballot boxes had

been wrapped in plastic, while others used pumps to drain floodwater.

Official results are not expected until March, but so-called quick counts from government-approved pollsters -- shown to be reliable in the past -- are expected to give an indication of the winner later Wednesday.