Indonesia election 2024: Voters head to the polls to determine next president

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.

About 259,000 candidates are contesting 20,600 posts across 17,000 islands in the world’s biggest single-day election, Reuters reported.

All eyes are on the presidency and the fate of Mr Widodo’s ambitious agenda after a decade in charge of the $1.3 trillion economy.

The race to replace Mr Widodo, who is popularly known as Jokowi, pits two former governors, Ganjar Pranowo and Anies Baswedan, against front-runner Prabowo Subianto, a former special forces commander feared in the 1990s as a top lieutenant of Indonesia’s late strongman ruler Suharto.

Polls opened at 7am local time in each of the three time zones across the tropical nation’s 17,000 islands inhabited by 270 million people.

The logistics of the vote were daunting: Ballot boxes and ballots were transported by boats, motorcycles, horses and on foot in some of the more far-flung locations, AP reported.

A fierce thunderstorm flooded several streets of Jakarta at dawn Wednesday.

Last week, damage from heavy rains in Central Java’s Demak regency prompted the postponement of the election in 10 villages.

Two surveys last week projected Mr Prabowo will win the majority of votes and avoid a second round.

Those surveys showed Mr Prabowo with 51.8 per cent and 51.9 per cent support, with Mr Anies and Mr Ganjar 27 and 31 points adrift, respectively.

To win outright, a candidate needs more than half the votes and to secure 20 per cent 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 6am 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 Mr Prabowo’s running mate.

After casting his ballot, Mr Prabowo thanked polling staff and said he hoped the “voting process goes well”.

Indonesian Presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto speaks to members of the media at a polling station during the general elections in Bogor, West Java, Indonesia. EPA

Undecided voters will be critical to former Jakarta governor Mr Anies and ex-Central Java governor Mr Ganjar, to try to force a run-off in June between the top two finishers.

“I want to underline that we want honest and fair elections so that it becomes peaceful,” Mr Anies said at a polling station

Deadly riots broke out after the 2019 election, when Mr Prabowo had initially contested Jokowi’s victory.

Mr Anies has campaigned on promises of change and preventing a backsliding in the democratic reforms achieved in the 25 years since the end of Mr Suharto’s authoritarian, kleptocratic rule.

Mr Ganjar is 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.