Indonesia election Jokowi, Prabowo vie for presidency

JAKARTA, Indonesia: More than 190 million Indonesians go to the polls on Wednesday to choose their next president after a polarising election campaign that has focused on ideologies rather than policies.

The presidential race pits incumbent Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and his running mate, Indonesian Ulama Council Chairman Ma’ruf Amin, against retired general and longtime rival Prabowo Subianto and multi-millionaire businessman Sandiaga Uno.

Widodo and Amin are trying to project themselves as progressive yet religious, with a campaign slogan of “Advancing Indonesia”.“I am a nationalist,” Widodo said on the announcement of his candidacy in August 2018. “He is a devout religious figure. We complement each other well.”

Prabowo, who has been accused of human rights abuses, ran against Widodo in 2014, while Uno is a businessman who spent a few months as deputy governor of Jakarta, after the mass rallies against Basuki Tjajaha Purnama (also known as Ahok) who was accused - and later convicted - of blasphemy.

The latest opinion polls in the lead-up to the election have Widodo-Amin leading by as many as 20 points, with a significant proportion of undecided voters.Most political experts predict a closer result, however, given that 2014’s pre-election polls were similar, but Widodo ultimately beat Prabowo by just six points.

Both sets Prabowo and his supporters have said they will protest in the streets “if the vote is stolen” from them. Some supporters have also been accusing the Widodo camp of voter fraud, claiming they are registering foreign voters and using fake voter lists.

Social media is helping fuel such conspiracies, with tension between each set of the supporters running high. On Twitter, Widodo supporters are referred to with derision as cebong (tadpoles), and Prabowo fans dismissed as kampret (bats).“At least two pieces of fake news are widely believed by Prabowo supporters,” said Andreas Harsono, Indonesian Researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Both Widodo and Prabowo are courting the Muslim vote. Widodo’s running mate is a well-known conservative voice and part of Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest Islamic organisation.A record 245,000 candidates are vying for public office, with current president Joko Widodo facing off against ex-general Prabowo Subianto for the top job.

The polls kick off early on Wednesday at over 800,000 plus ballot stations staffed by millions of election officials, starting in easternmost Papua where a separatist insurgency has simmered for decades.

Security will be tight in parts of the mountainous region after rebels massacred more than a dozen employees at a state-backed contractor in December. Violence also erupted as election material was delivered before local polls last year, resulting in the deaths of several police and election officials.

But armed rebels aren’t the only election challenge in Papua, which shares an island border with independent Papua New Guinea. Voters in parts of the mineral-rich region use a communal voting system called "noken", in which a village head collects votes and represents the group at the ballot box.

It is a challenge to the concept of direct voting and a headache for local officials who have tried -- and failed -- to change the fraud-prone system in a country where vote buying is already rife. "Usually, voters choose candidates who are from their village or family," said Papua’s election commission head Theodorus Kossay. "Also, what often happens is that the number of votes that are actually filed can be different from what was agreed upon by the group, which leads to cheating."