February 19, 2024
JAKARTA – Presidential candidate and incumbent Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto has received congratulatory calls from several world leaders, expressing their best wishes and hopes for future cooperation, after he took an apparent lead in quick counts of the presidential election results.
Prabowo, who ran with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s eldest son Gibran Rakabuming Raka in the presidential race, is projected to win the three-horse election in a landslide victory according to preliminary results from most pollsters.
Many quick count results have indicated that the pair have garnered 56 to 59 percent of the total vote and dominate the majority of provinces, including their rivals’ strongholds.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was among the first foreign leader who called Prabowo to express his congratulatory remarks on Thursday. He wrote in his official X account, formerly Twitter, that he was looking forward to working with the “new Indonesian president”.
“I was honored to be the first [to] speak today with @prabowo, who has a clear lead in official and unofficial counts, about my ambition for the future of Australia-Indonesia relations,” Albanese wrote.
Albanese’s call was soon followed by others from Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on the same day, according to Prabowo through his X account.
Lee talked with Prabowo about the state of bilateral relations between Indonesia and Singapore, agreeing on the importance of identifying new and mutually beneficial areas of cooperation. Among the areas discussed were the digital economy and human capital development, according to a statement issued by Prabowo’s campaign team.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala went online on Thursday to publicly congratulate the incumbent defense minister.
“Congratulations to HE @prabowo Subianto for winning the 2024 Indonesian presidential elections,” he wrote. “Let me wish you a smooth transition.”
On the same day, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also wrote that he had congratulated Prabowo “following the projected outcome of the elections”, adding that he was eager to continue building the bilateral relationship between the two countries.
Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin was next in line to congratulate Prabowo. He wrote on his official Facebook account on Friday expressing his felicitations on Prabowo’s “presidential election victory”.
Widely known in Thailand as a soccer-loving property mogul, 61-year-old Sretta took office as the country’s prime minister in August last year after months of political deadlock following a general election three months earlier. Sretta heads a controversial coalition including pro-military parties linked to former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
With the General Elections Commission (KPU) still working on the official vote and various claims of foul play expressed by Prabowo’s rivals, some countries were still seemingly cautious in ringing up the projected victor, with none so far delivering any remarks through conservative diplomatic channels.
The United States, for instance, trod on the cautionary side by choosing to only congratulate the Indonesian population on the election’s “robust turnout” in a statement that skipped any mention of Prabowo’s name, according to a statement from the country’s State Department.
On Thursday, United Kingdom Ambassador to Indonesia and Timor-Leste Dominic Jermey wrote on X similarly expressing congratulatory remarks to the “Indonesian people who have cast their vote in the largest fiesta of democracy”.
While quick counts are only reflective of around 10 percent of all votes, they have in the past been an accurate forecast of the real count results, which could take a month for the KPU to officially announce.
As of Friday noon, the KPU’s real count had accounted for 54.9 percent of all votes, indicating a Prabowo-Gibran lead of 57 percent.
The KPU’s official tally is expected to be announced on March 20, by which time more congratulations will likely be received by the future presidential and vice presidential pair.