Indonesia’s Prabowo Subianto has been elected president of the world’s third biggest democracy, the General Elections Commission says, decisively beating two rivals who have promised to file a legal complaint about the vote.
Defence Minister Prabowo and his vice presidential running mate, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, received a majority of votes in the February 14 first round, winning 59 percent, or more than 96 million votes, commission Chairperson Hasyim Asy’ari said on Wednesday.
Anies Baswedan secured nearly 41 million votes, or 25 percent of the total count, while Ganjar Pranowo received 27 million votes, more than 16 percent.
Prabowo, a former special forces commander, is expected to take over from outgoing President Joko Widodo, Gibran’s father, in October after a transition period.
Al Jazeera’s Jessica Washington, reporting from Jakarta, described the win as “a resounding victory”.
It is a “remarkable victory for a man who has contested the presidency twice before and failed,” Washington said.
“He has promised a smooth transition to power and has promised that he will be the continuity candidate and continue the work of the very popular president.”
The 72-year-old swept the election on promises of continuing Widodo’s policies, riding on the president’s popularity and using social media platforms like TikTok to tap the support of Indonesia’s huge young voter base.
Prabowo had already claimed victory in the election after unofficial vote counts showed him with a significant lead over his rivals.
“We should not be arrogant. We should not be proud. We should not be euphoric. We still have to be humble. This victory must be a victory for all Indonesian people,” he said at the time in a speech broadcast on national television.
Controversies and concerns
His rivals Anies and Ganjar said they plan to submit a complaint to the Constitutional Court about irregularities and allegations of fraud during the general election.
Washington said their teams have discussed issues of “widespread distribution of social aid”.
She said their teams have described this as an “anomaly, saying that the level of social aid that was dispersed in the lead up of the election suggests that it may have been trying to gain the sympathy of voters, rather than for the legitimate purposes of social aid”.
Prabowo’s legal team, however, is confident the result will not be successfully challenged because of his wide margin of victory, local media reported on Tuesday.
The road to Prabowo’s win was marred by controversies and concerns about patronage politics over his alliance with the president, popularly known as Jokowi, who was widely accused of abusing his position to favour his former rival, allegations his allies denied.
Prabowo has been accused of human rights abuses in East Timor, which won independence from Indonesia in 2002 after the collapse of the Soeharto government, and in Indonesia’s troubled eastern region of Papua.
On the campaign trail, Prabowo and Gibran pledged to continue the policies of Gibran’s father, who retained an approval rating of about 80 percent but was barred under the constitution from running again.
They will inherit an economy that grew a little more than 5 percent last year and a slate of ambitious infrastructure projects, including the transfer of the capital from Jakarta to the island of Borneo.
