Indonesia’s President Jokowi Claims Victory Despite Resistance from Opposition

Incumbent Indonesian president and candidate in last week’s election, Joko Widodo, has declared victory in the country’s presidential elections which took place on Wednesday, April 17, despite claims from main opposition candidate, Prabowo Subianto, that the election was rigged.

While official results are yet to be announced by Indonesia’s official election monitoring and regulating agency, unofficial results from private polls claiming to be based on vote samples from the elections appear to be pointing towards Widodo’s re-election with 55 percent of the popular vote.

Widodo based his win on the unofficial polls, stating that he had already received congratulatory calls from 22 state leaders, including the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohammed.

According to the BBC, he also disclosed that he called for a meeting with Prabowo, and was awaiting a response.

“We must wait for the official result. But 12 pollsters have given clear results… we convey that the Jokowi-Maruf ticket got 54.5 percent of the vote while Prabowo got 45.5 percent,” Widodo told a news conference in South Jakarta.”

A case of Déjà vu struck a separate conference where Prabowo, who had contested and challenged the result of the 2014 elections, did the same thing again, claiming that he had “evidence of widespread cheating at the village, sub-district and district levels across Indonesia.”

He also claimed that he was the true winner of the elections with 62 percent of the votes cast by the 192 registered members of the electorate. If he decides to pursue this, he will have to address the Constitutional Court, which rejected his redress in 2014.

The results of the private pollsters have been proven to be an accurate reflection of the later revealed official results over the years. However, Indonesians will have to wait until May 22, for the actual results.