April 18, 2019
Both sides have claimed victory in the last 24 hours.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has called on members of the public to reunite as brothers and sisters following the bitterly contested presidential election that again pitted him against his old rival, Prabowo Subianto.
Speaking before a crowd of supporters and journalists in Djakarta Theatre, Jokowi also called on all parties to wait for the official final tally of the General Elections Commission (KPU), despite quick count results showing he was leading the presidential race.
The President said he and members of his coalition had learned the results of various exit polls and quick counts of the presidential election by Wednesday afternoon.
“However, we have to be patient and wait for the official recapitulation of votes by the KPU,” Jokowi said.
The majority of quick count results conducted by established pollsters have shown that Jokowi is leading the race by a comfortable margin.
A quick count conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Cyrus Network indicates that Jokowi has been reelected to the presidency, with the Jokowi-Ma’ruf Amin ticket winning 55.8 percent of the vote against Prabowo-Sandiaga Uno’s 44.2 percent as of 5:48 p.m., when data from 90 percent of the surveyed polling stations had been received.
Jokowi, who thanked all election organizers and security authorities for their efforts to ensure a free and fair election, also went on to call for Indonesians to mend relations after the election.
Luhut Panjaitan, who heads the Bravo 5 volunteer group supporting Jokowi, conceded that the incumbent was leading in the election based on quick-count results and big data. However, Jokowi did not want to overstep the KPU and would wait for the official tally before declaring victory.
In response to Prabowo’s claim that certain pollsters have been partisan, Luhut said it would be impossible for polling agencies to doctor their own survey results because their reputations were at stake.
“In my opinion, we should not be prejudiced because we’re all professionals,” Luhut said, “Quick-count results from different pollsters only have slight differences; 1 to 2 percent.”