Indonesia set to vote in presidential elections
Updated
Some opinion polls and pundits are predicting that Indonseian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono could become the country's first leader in the democratic era to win a second term.
Today, 176 million Indonesians will vote in the Presidential polls, with the incumbent SBY hoping to win a clear victory over his rivals, vice President Jusuf Kalla and former President Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speakers: Gavin Fang, ABC Australia Network's Indonesia correspondent
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Gavin Fang, Indonesia correspondent for the ABC's Australia Network, speaking to us from Jakarta. For the latest on the Indonesian polls and other news, go to radioaustralianews.net.au
FANG: Well, I think that's based basically on the polling that's been done over the past weeks and months which really hasn't shown any shift away from the president to the two challengers, Megawati Sukarnoputri or Jusuf Kalla. The last poll conducted over the weekend had the president at about 63 per cent of the vote with Megawati trailing with about 20 per cent and Jusuf Kalla on 11 per cent. So given those numbers, that's a pretty big majority, a pretty big margin, and what looks like will be a one-round election victory for the president.
LAM: Well, in the past few years, some people in Indonesia have viewed SBY as to indecisive. Why do you think he's remained so popular?
FANG: I don't think that reputation has changed throughout this campaign, but what voters seem to be saying is that they want the stability, they want the continuation of the policies that SBY has brought over the past five years. Also if you ask analysts here, they will say that SBY did something that was very important late last year and early this year. He introduced a program of cash handouts for poor people and other subsidies and they were incredibly popular at a time when prices were going up, when fuel prices and food prices were going up and they really boosted his popularity and that popularity is just continued right up to this election. So despite that reputation for indecision, his policies have actually given him a boost with voters.
LAM: And Gavin, it's early morning in Jakarta of course. The polling stations will not open for another hour or two, When will we start getting results from today's election?
FANG: Polls have opened in eastern Indonesia, but you're right, they won't open here in Jakarta for another couple of hours. They close here in Jakarta at 1 o'clock and the same across the country, the various time zones. We'll start to get what's called a quick count result, which is a sample of the voting, probably about two hours after that. So the actual official count will not be done for sometime, but we should know later on tonight who is going to win this election based on those quick count results, which in the past have been quite accurate.
LAM: And in the lead up to today's polling, there were concerns about voter lists. Is this something that might emerge as an issue after the election?
FANG: That's one of the big issues that we'll be keeping an eye on today. Right up until last night, there were negotiations about the problems with the voter list. There has been a lot of complaints by mainly the rivals to the president about fictitious names on the voter list. Yesterday, the campaign of Megawati Sukarnoputri was saying that they claimed they had found about 20 million fictitious names on the list. There are also complaints that many people would go to the voting booth, but wouldn't be correctly registered, so would not be able to vote. The constitutional court went some way to fixing that two nights ago by ruling that Indonesians could use their own ID card to vote as identification, rather than being on the roll itself. So we're going to have to wait and see I think later today how that plays out. But that's one of the big issues of this election and that may led possibly to some legal challenges to come.
