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Jokowi wins Indonesian election; Subianto alleges fraud

In victory speech, Jokowi asks Indonesians to forget rivalries which saw the country split into two camps, and give priority to unity.

22.07.2014 - Update : 22.07.2014
Jokowi wins Indonesian election; Subianto alleges fraud

By Ainur Rohmah

JAKARTA

 

Joko “Jokowi” Widoko has won Indonesia's presidential election with 53 percent of the vote, bringing to an end one of the most bitterly fought and closest elections in the country's history.

The General Elections Commission (KPU) announced the official tally for the world's third largest democracy Tuesday evening, naming Jokowi president-elect with a total of almost 71 million votes.

"The KPU declares candidate pair Joko Widodo-Jusuf Kalla as president-elect and vice president-elect," commission chairman Husni Kamil Malik said live on national television.

In his victory speech at Sunda Kelapa Harbor in the capital Jakarta on Tuesday night, Jokowi asked Indonesians to forget the rivalries which saw the country split into two camps, and give priority to unity. 

"Please forget number one and number two [the candidates were numbered one and two]. Come back to one Indonesia," he said.

 "With humility, we hail people to return to their historical destiny as one nation."

Jokowi is due to replace President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono - who makes way in October having reached the two-term limit.

Some supporters took to Twitter to welcome the new president - many tweeting with the hash tag #PresidenBaru (new president) - others declared their allegiance on facebook or even mobile phones - "Thanks God, I have new president," wrote Ansyor (many Indonesians use just one name) - while others stayed at home.

Supriadi told the Anadolu Agency from his home that he wouldn't take to the streets to celebrate the win "because it will make [losing candidate] Prabowo's supporters feel disappointed."

Just hours before the official result, General Prabowo Subianto - who was judged to have garnered 46.85 percent of the vote - withdrew his candidacy, claiming massive fraud.

The loss for either candidate would have been particularly hard to take as after the initial July 9 vote, both had claimed victory - eight of 12 opinion polls ruling for Jokowi, while four naming ex-general Subianto as the winner.

For months, however, polls had 53-year-old everyman Jokowi well ahead, but with days to go before the vote they suggested Subianto had closed the gap to just 1.5 percent.

In a press conference Tuesday, Subianto - a former military general under President Suharto - rejected the election, and instructed all of his team to walk out from the commission building.

"We reject the 2014 presidential election, which is illegitimate, and therefore we withdraw from the ongoing process," he said.

The self-styled military strongman has three days to lodge a formal protest with the Constitutional Court.

Outgoing President Yudhoyono has urged both parties to respect the result.

Subianto -- reported to model himself on the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk -- is a businessman and heavily decorated lieutenant general, having headed the country's oppressive special forces under General Suharto, while Jokowi -- who resigned his post as mayor of Indonesia's capital city Jakarta to run for president -- is a one time little-known furniture retailer, whose stock began to rise in 2005 when he became the mayor of the central Javanese city of Solo. 

In the past few months, questions were raised in the nation's press about Jokowi's ethnicity, race and religion, along with allegations of corruption. One report even went as far as to claim he had died.

Subianto, meanwhile, had been accused of gross human rights violations when he was head of the Indonesian Special Forces, including the kidnapping of students in the last days of General Suharto's regime.

Indonesia - the world's most populous Muslim nation - was a military dictatorship until 16 years ago, governed by former president and dictator Suharto.

Jokowi is the first president to come from outside the country's tightly knit elite, although the chair of his Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) is Megawati Sukarnoputri - the country's first female president and daughter of the country's first president, Sukarno.

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