Jokowi easily wins a second term as Prabowo refuses to concede
Jakarta: Joko Widodo has won his second five-year term as Indonesian President with an overwhelming mandate of 55.5 per cent of total valid votes against rival Prabowo Subianto.
But Prabowo, a businessman and former military general, has vowed not the accept the result, forcing tens of thousands of police and soldiers onto the streets of Jakarta to resist his threatened "people power" movement.
Official results from Indonesia's General Elections Commission, released at midnight on Tuesday, local time, showed more than 85 million voters supported Joko, a former furniture maker, compared to 68 million for Prabowo. Joko's margin of victory at 11 per cent was almost double the lead he secured in 2014 against the same opponent.
Joko's party, PDIP, also won first place in the parliamentary election with 19.3 per cent of the vote. The next biggest parliamentary party will be Prabowo's Gerindra party with 12.6 per cent.
It is not immediately clear how many seats each party will get out of the 575 contested seats.
Representatives of the Prabowo camp refused in the plenary session of the Elections Commission to sign the final result.
There is no evidence of the mass manipulation of the vote - Prabowo's main complaint. But in similar circumstances at the last presidential election in 2014, Prabowo challenged the result in the Constitutional Court, and lost.
This time, Prabowo and his camp have stated they will not go to court, but prefer to protest on the streets.
The street in front of the Elections Commission office in central Jakarta has been closed since Monday evening, with more than 32,000 police and military personnel deployed to guard it and other government offices.
Indonesian TV channel Metro TV reported that around 1200 people have been stopped by police since Sunday from going to Jakarta where they planned to stage a rally on Wednesday.
Police arrested two dozen militants linked to Islamic State earlier this month who were plotting attacks on rallies. Most of the 29 suspects detained were former IS militants, who fought in Syria and are members of local terror group Jamaah Ansharut Daulah, according to National Police spokesman Mohammad Iqbal.
These groups consider democracy to be forbidden by Islam, police said.
Joko, universally known as Jokowi, is expected to be sworn in for his second five-year tenure on October 20.
The result should allow him to focus on steps to shield south-east Asia's largest economy from an escalating US-China trade war that's threatening to hurt growth and fuel a trade deficit. The nation's stocks, bonds and the currency have all slumped in the past month as foreign investors have grown jittery over the outlook for economic growth.
Jokowi has urged people to abide by the official results and not be swayed by claims of irregularities. He's ordered infrastructure spending to be accelerated, especially on urban and digital projects, to boost economic growth.
He's also promised to reduce poverty, keep prices low and improve tax revenue. The government has already embarked on a $US350 billion ($505 billion) infrastructure drive, the biggest in the nation's history, but needs to do more to ease traffic bottlenecks, particularly in transport and electricity.
The government is also expected to spend more on education and training.
With Bloomberg