Indonesia election 2024: early quick-count votes show Prabowo Subianto in lead with 59%

Prabowo is seeking a single-round victory over his rivals – the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle’s (PDI-P) candidate Ganjar Pranowo, and opposition figure Anies Baswedan – to avoid a run-off election between the first and second-place finishers on June 26.

Early quick-count results released by independent pollsters at 3pm local time indicated Prabowo was ahead.

The Centre for Strategic and International Studies think tank, which had counted 36 per cent of the sample results, showed Prabowo at 59 per cent, Anies at 23 per cent and Ganjar at 17 per cent. Pollster Indikator, which counted 28.8 per cent of sample data, also showed Prabowo at 59 per cent, Anies at 23 per cent and Ganjar at 16 per cent votes.

In 2019, Widodo won the election in one round after winning 55.5 per cent of the vote, defeating Prabowo’s 44.5 per cent.

Heavy rain overnight across the country disrupted voting in the morning, as some polling stations were reportedly flooded and had to be moved to private houses. The rain forced all candidates to postpone their votes by around an hour.

Ganjar cast his ballot in the city of Semarang, and his VP pick Muhammad Mahfud voted in Yogyakarta, while Prabowo cast his vote near his sprawling estate in Hambalang, West Java.

All the candidates convened at their respective headquarters in Jakarta to monitor the quick counts.

Asked by reporters if he was optimistic that he would win in one round, Prabowo said “God willing”.

Anies said the most important thing in Wednesday’s election “is that the vote is intact; we want honest and fair elections so that the people are calm”.

At the opposition candidate’s campaign headquarters in Central Jakarta, the mood was sombre at 2pm local time as sample counts showed Anies