Ex-General Prabowo Subianto declares victory in race to lead Indonesia

Prabowo called for unity and said “this victory must be a victory for all Indonesians.” His 30-minute speech was punctuated by thanking dozens of allies including those in the military and paying tribute to past leaders. Yet, it’s his ties with the incumbent Jokowi that roused the crowd to chant the president’s name. Prabowo had lost to him in the past two elections and his son Gibran is now his vice president.

A swift victory for Prabowo and Gibran removes the uncertainty from a prolonged election and may lift Indonesian stocks and the local currency in the near-term, analysts said. The offshore rupiah rose as much as 0.5% to 15,599 per dollar.

“The quick counts showing Prabowo with a comfortable lead should be positive for market sentiment in the near term, given the associated reduction in political uncertainty and policy direction,” said Krystal Tan, economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. “Focus will now shift towards the composition of the ruling coalition and appointments to key posts, particularly the finance portfolio and the implications for fiscal policy,” Tan said. Local financial markets are shut on election day.

The counting done by private pollsters are based on a sample of actual votes from more than 800,000 polling stations across the country and provide an early indication of the official results, which may only come in days or weeks.

Prabowo has pitched himself as the candidate most likely to advance Jokowi’s business-friendly economic platform as he seeks to transform Indonesia into a high-income economy by 2045. Those priorities include downstreaming Indonesia’s vast natural resources, building more infrastructure and moving the nation’s capital to Borneo.

The former son-in-law of Indonesia’s late dictator Suharto was banned from entering the US for two decades over alleged human rights abuses, something that was lifted after Jokowi named him defense minister in 2019 after beating him in that year’s election. The outgoing president hasn’t publicly declared support for Prabowo.

The victory can, in part, be attributed to an extensive image makeover on social media that has seen the temperamental military man with history of fiery nationalist speeches depicted as an affable grandfatherly figure. Among his promises is a pledge to give free lunches to some 83 million students, something that would cost 300 trillion rupiah ($19 billion) a year — nearly the same size as the nation’s 2023 budget deficit.