Joko Widodo, the incumbent Indonesian President, won last month’s election by a comfortable ten percent margin over his rival, retired General Prabowo Subianto, the country’s election commission announced early on Tuesday.
The official result of 55.5% for Mr Widodo, 57, and 44.5% for his challenger confirmed unofficial counts by pollsters of the April 17 election, but it could trigger a legal complaint and civil unrest after accusations by Mr Prabowo, 67, of widespread corruption and incompetence.
The official vote count was announced a day earlier than expected and in the small hours of the morning amid heightened tensions in the capital, Jakarta, following plans by Islamist groups to hold mass rallies to protest the results.
It also follows a US embassy security alert to avoid demonstrations and police warnings that Islamic extremists were plotting to launch attacks to disrupt the election announcement.
Over the past month, police have arrested 29 suspects linked to Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) – the largest Islamic State-linked group in the country, and at least five homemade bombs have been confiscated in various locations across Java and North Sulawesi.
The police and military have been ordered to prevent people from travelling en masse to Jakarta to join protests and water cannons and armoured vehicles are on standby.
Willy Kurniawan/Reuters
The election commission itself is being protected by heavily armed security officials and barbed wire.
Mr Widodo, a moderate Muslim and popular reformist leader who focused during his first term on infrastructure development and slashing red tape, won the poll with over 85 million votes out of 154 million cast in the world’s third-largest democracy.
His victory was boosted by a high turnout of almost 80 percent of the 192 million eligible voters who cast their ballot in some 800,000 voting stations spanning the 17,000 islands of the Southeast Asian archipelago.
The election campaign between the two rivals – who also went head to head in the 2014 poll – was bitter and divisive.
It is not yet clear if Mr Prabowo will mount a legal challenge to the official result, which he previously did, and lost, in 2014.
An election supervisory agency earlier on Monday dismissed claims of systematic cheating because of a lack of evidence and independent observers and analysts have said the poll was free and fair.
Willy Kurniawan/Reuters
But a witness for Prabowo’s campaign team and the leading opposition party refused to sign and validate the official results, reported Reuters.
“We won’t give up in the face of this injustice, cheating, lies, and these actions against democracy,” said Azis Subekti.
Neither candidate has so far publicly commented on the election commission declaration.
Earlier this week, the government and police urged the protestors to remain peaceful, and the Prabowo camp has sought to distance itself from planned demonstrations, reported the local media.
According to the Jakarta Globe, more than 1,200 Prabowo supporters were stopped by police from travelling to Jakarta during a three-day operation that began on Saturday.
CNN Indonesia reported that four Molotov cocktails were allegedly found hidden inside a minibus used by four would-be protestors en route to the capital. Police in all provinces have been tightening security.
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