The People Have Chosen; Prabowo Subianto Almost Certain to Become Indonesia’s 8th President
On Wednesday 14 February 2024, a total of around 204.8 million Indonesian voters were allowed to choose the new president for the 2024-2029 period. And while not all people will take advantage of their right to vote (and there always is a number of invalid votes), we do expect more than 80 percent of that total to have shown up on Valentine’s Day.
After all, it is among the most important political decisions to be taken in any democracy because having a new president means having a new captain at the steering wheel.
By 20 March 2024 the General Elections Commission (Komisi Pemilihan Umum, or KPU) should have released the official result of the 2024 presidential and legislative elections. But in the meantime we can actually follow the official counting process on the KPU’s website (www.pemilu2024.kpu.go.id/pilpres/hitung-suara)
In line with all credible quick count results released in the afternoon of 14 February 2024, Prabowo Subianto (and his running mate Gibran Rakabuming) enjoy a wide margin over their competitors. Meanwhile, it are the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) and the Party of Functional Groups (Golkar) that seem to become the biggest political parties in the next five years.
Table 1 shows Prabowo Subianto enjoys such as wide gap with his two rivals that it seems certain a second round will not be necessary. When one pair holds an absolute majority (over 50 percent of the national vote) and (at least) 20 percent of the local votes in 20 Indonesian provinces, then a second round (in which the top two pairs would need to battle for the win) will not be required.
After almost 80 percent of the national votes have been counted, we should expect Prabowo to win with around 58-59 percent of the votes. And in terms of provinces, the only provinces where Prabowo didn’t become number one seem to be Aceh and West Sumatra (where in both Islamic strongholds Anies Baswedan enjoyed most of the votes). DKI Jakarta is still too close to call (a fierce battle between Prabowo and Anies). Meanwhile, in all the provinces on Papua the number of votes that have been counted by the KPU is still so low that the virtual lead of Prabowo in these provinces is rather meaningless at the moment.
Still, even in case Prabowo loses in those six provinces on Papua – as well as in Aceh, Jakarta and West Sumatra – he still meets the ’20 percent provincial requirement’ to win the presidential election in one round only. And therefore it is safe to assume he will become the next president in late-October 2024.
In theory it is still possible though that Indonesia’s Constitutional Court intervenes by declaring that fraud influenced the election. However, this would require some strong and clear evidence. It seems unlikely that such evidence can be presented.
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