By Gayatri Suroyo and Stefanno Sulaiman
JAKARTA (Reuters) -Indonesians cast their ballots on Wednesday across the Southeast Asian archipelago in an election headlined by the race to succeed President Joko Widodo, whose influence could determine who takes the helm of the world’s third-largest democracy.
Nearly 259,000 candidates are contesting 20,600 posts across 17,000 islands in the world’s biggest single-day election, but all eyes are on the presidency and the fate of Widodo’s ambitious agenda after a decade in charge of the $1.3 trillion economy.
The race to replace Widodo, who is popularly known as Jokowi, pits two former governors, Ganjar Pranowo and Anies Baswedan, against controversial frontrunner Prabowo Subianto, a former special forces commander feared in the 1990s as a top lieutenant of Indonesia’s late strongman ruler Suharto.
Two surveys last week projected Prabowo will win the majority of votes and avoid a second round.
Those surveys showed Prabowo with 51.8% and 51.9% support, with Anies and Ganjar 27 and 31 points adrift, respectively. To win outright, a candidate needs over 50% of votes and to secure 20% of the ballot in half of the country’s provinces.
Novan Maradona, 42, an entrepreneur, said after voting in central Jakarta he wanted a candidate who would continue policies currently in place.
“If we start over from zero, it will take time,” he said.
Voters have a six-hour window to cast ballots. Indonesia has three time zones and polling stations across the country are now open, with voting in western areas due to close by 0600 GMT.
Polling got off to a slow start in Jakarta, with big thunderstorms causing flooding in parts of the capital.
The extent of delays was not clear nor whether it would impact voter turnout but Jakarta’s disaster management agency shared photographs of a flooded polling station as officials moved voting materials to a safer location.
Initial indications of the result are expected to emerge later on Wednesday, based on publicly counted votes from a sampling of polling stations across the country. In previous elections, the unofficial counts tabulated by reputable companies have proved to be accurate.
CALL FOR CLEAN ELECTION
Defence Minister Prabowo is contesting his third election after twice losing to Jokowi, who is tacitly backing and betting on his former rival as a continuity candidate to preserve his legacy, including a role for his son as Prabowo’s running mate.
After casting his ballot, Prabowo thanked polling staff and said he hoped the “voting process goes well”.
Undecided voters will be critical to former Jakarta governor Anies and ex-Central Java governor Ganjar, to try to force a runoff in June between the top two finishers.
“I want to underline that we want honest and fair elections so that it becomes peaceful,” Anies said at a polling station
Deadly riots broke out after the 2019 election, when Prabowo had initially contested Jokowi’s victory.
Anies has campaigned on promises of change and preventing a backsliding in the democratic reforms achieved in the 25 years since the end of Suharto’s authoritarian, kleptocratic rule.
Ganjar hails from the Indonesia Democratic Party of Struggle, of which Jokowi is ostensibly a member, and has campaigned largely on continuing the president’s policies, but crucially lacks his endorsement.
Before voting, he called for a clean election so that candidates could accept the result.
PRABOWO REBRAND
The 72-year-old Prabowo has cultivated a huge youth following on social media, owing to a rebrand that has transformed his image from a fiery-tempered nationalist and military hard man to a cuddly grandfather figure with awkward dance moves.
Prabowo’s more gentle characterisation, played out largely on short video app TikTok, has endeared him to voters under 40, who make up more than half of the 204.8 million electorate.
But Jokowi’s intimated support for Prabowo, plus allegations he interfered in a court ruling to allow his son to contest the vice presidency, have prompted criticism that unlike previous presidents he is not staying neutral over his succession.
His loyalists have rejected that and it is unclear if the allegations will impact Prabowo.
Asked about allegations of foul play, including in a documentary called “Dirty Vote” that went viral on social media, Jokowi said there were mechanisms to report issues.
“If there is cheating on the ground, that can be reported to Bawaslu (the election watchdog) and then … a petition can be brought to the Constitutional Court.”
(Reporting by Fransiska Nangogy, Bernadette Chrsistina Munthe, Stanley Widianto, Ananda Teresia; Writing by Martin Petty, Ed Davies; Editing by Michael Perry)
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