THE main party backing Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has claimed victory in Indonesia's presidential election despite last-minute accusations from his rival that allegations of mass vote fraud had not been properly investigated.
Jokowi's final tally was put at 53.15 per cent, according to one report, and party chairwoman Megawati Sukarnoputri said: "I want to declare that we, the party that supports and puts forward Joko Widodo and Jusuf Kalla (for vice president), has won." Jokowi will take office in October to serve a five-year term.
But in a piece of political brinkmanship, the man expected to come second, former general Prabowo Subianto, said he was pulling out of the final vote count.
The move will have no impact on the result, but it does suggest the former special forces commander could take his fight to the Constitutional Court.
Mr Prabowo said: "The presidential election process done by the KPU is problematic and not democratic."
The Prabowo camp alleges mass cheating in the July 9 ballot, enough, they say, to overturn Jokowi's predicted victory.
But unofficial counts suggest this would require as many as seven million votes switching over to Mr Prabowo, which analysts say is highly unlikely. Many private counts have given Jokowi a lead of around five percentage points.
The KPU has been widely praised for the way it has conducted the vote in the world's third largest democracy and home to its biggest Muslim population.
"It's reflective of a man who has dedicated the past 10 years to his candidacy," Douglas Ramage, a Jakarta-based political analyst said of Mr Prabowo's reaction to the result going against him. "This was his last shot and he has failed to achieve his life's quest. He's disappointed."
The Prabowo camp earlier demanded the commission delay its announcement for two weeks so that the alleged cheating could be investigated. Both sides had claimed victory in the closest ever presidential election in Indonesia.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article