Indonesia Conducts World’s Biggest One-Day Election to Form Its New Government
In the election, President Joko Widodo is seeking re-election against former army general Prabowo Subianto, whom he has defeated closely in the last election in 2014.
Indonesia has already started voting to choose its new government and a new leader in what is called the world’s biggest single-day election today, after six months of aggressive campaign by the two prominent leaders of the country.
More than 192 million citizens of the country are exercising their right to vote in the national and regional legislative elections and choose their future leaders from among the 245,000 candidates.
In the election, President Joko Widodo is seeking re-election against former army general Prabowo Subianto, whom he has defeated closely in the last election in 2014. Widodo is a businessman before entering politics 14 years ago as a city mayor.
Though most of the opinion polls have given Widodo a double-digit victory, the opposition says the race for the government is going to be very close.
Prabowo Subianto also told a news conference that he is expected to win with 63 percent of the vote. He said, “Even though there have been obstacles and anomalies, I believe, at the end of it, we cannot contain the will of the people”.
Meanwhile, Marcus Mietzner, Associate Professor at Australian National University also said, “Should Prabowo win, this would literally be the end of opinion polling in Indonesia and a major, major upset”, said while predicting the election in Indonesia.
Joko Widodo is a moderate Muslim from central Java has to come out of anti-Islamic credentials after smear campaigns and many pop up stories accused him of being anti-Islam. He is well portrayed as a communist and someone who is too close to China. All these factors are politically damaging in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country. He also picked an Islamic cleric, 76-year-old Maruf Amin, as his running mate to ward off his image of anti-Muslim.
On the other hand, Prabowo Subianto a former Special Forces commander has links to some of the hardline Islamist groups and his running mate, business entrepreneur Sandiaga Uno, has already declared that they will boost the economy by slashing taxes and focusing on infrastructure if they come to power.
Indonesia’s election supervisory board has recommended revoting for the Indonesian citizen in Malaysia and Australia, where there are several hundred registered voters, who can vote online.
For the peaceful conduct of election across the country 350,000 police and soldiers have joined 1.6 million paramilitary officers stationed across the country of 17,000 islands. The election results would be declared in May.