Jakarta governor wins Indonesian presidency

 

Widodo, a former furniture exporter known to most as "Jokowi," is the first candidate in a direct presidential election in Indonesia with no ties to the former dictator Suharto, who ruled for 30 years before being overthrown in 1998.

 

The other contender, former Gen. Prabowo Subianto, declared he was withdrawing from the contest shortly before the final numbers were released by the Election Commission, saying there was massive fraud during the election, and that it was unfair and undemocratic.

 

Widodo had maintained a slim lead of about 4 percentage points in unofficial "quick counts" by polling agencies released after the July 9 election. But Subianto, who has declared assets of $140 million and was on his third bid for the presidency, repeatedly claimed that polling firms with links to his campaign showed he was ahead.

 

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

 

Observers of the election said they were generally fair and free, with minimal abnormalities. Maswadi Rauf, a political professor at the University of Indonesia, said he saw no sign of significant fraud, as alleged by Subianto.

Subianto's rejection of the results "reflects the real attitudes of the elite, who are not yet ready to accept losing," Rauf said. "We are still in a transition to democracy, which is indeed not our culture. And what is happening indicates we are still immature, we need to learn."

 

There were no immediate reports of violence Tuesday. About 100 Subianto supporters held a peaceful protest about 300 meters (yards) from the Election Commission building in downtown Jakarta, chanting "Prabowo is the real president" and holding banners saying that the commission should stop cheating.

 

The building was surrounded by thousands of policemen to maintain security after a particularly nasty presidential campaign marred by smear tactics from both camps. Widodo blamed his drop in opinion polls in the weeks before the election on character assaults that accused him, among other things, of not being a follower of Islam - which he denounced.

 

Indonesia, an archipelago of about 17,000 islands and 240 million people, has the world's fourth-largest population and is the most populous Muslim country.

 

Despite Widodo's lack of experience in national politics, he built a reputation as being a man of the people and an efficient leader who wants to advance democratic reforms, and was elected to run Jakarta, the capital, in 2012. He is widely viewed as untainted by the often corrupt military and business elite that have run Indonesia for decades.

 

Subianto, meanwhile, a general in the Suharto regime and the late dictator's former son-in-law, came from a wealthy, well-known family. He had a dubious human rights record during his military career, but was seen as a strong and decisive leader. His campaign was better financed and he got endorsements from most of the country's major political parties, including that of outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who served two terms lasting 10 years and was constitutionally barred from seeking re-election.

 

Final results showed that Widodo received 70,997,859 votes, or 53.15 percent of the nearly 133 million valid ballots cast, while Subianto got 62,576,444 votes, or 46.85 percent.

 

Voter turnout was 70 percent, down slightly from the 2009 presidential election, when it was 72 percent.