Indonesian Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto. (Photo: AFP) Jakarta (VNA) - Indonesian Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto on February 14 claimed victory in the first round of the archipelago's presidential election after preliminary results indicated he was on course to be elected leader of the Southeast Asian country.
Unofficial counts surveying some vote-counting stations gave Prabowo over 55%, a majority that will make a runoff unnecessary.
However, he acknowledged that he must wait for the announcement by the election commission and it will take about a month for the official results to be released.
Speaking at a crowd in central Jakarta, Subianto said that all counts, all pollsters have showed figures that Prabowo-Gibran won in one round, and this victory will be for all Indonesians.
More than 820,000 polling stations throughout Indonesia opened simultaneously on February 14 morning for more than 204.8 million eligible voters to cast their ballots in the country’s presidential, national and provincial elections.
Voting began at 7:00 a.m. and will end at 1:00 p.m. on the same day. Votes will be counted at the polling stations on the day.
As many as 24 political parties, including 18 national and six regional in Aceh, are racing in the election. The three candidates running for President are Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto, former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo, and former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan.
The voting process has been supervised by the General Elections Commission (KPU), the General Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu), representatives of parties and localities, and international observers./.
