Indonesian president declares poll win as rival does too

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00:32

Indonesian President Joko Widodo declared victory on Thursday in the race to lead the world's third-largest democracy, saying unofficial results showed his ticket had got 54 percent of the popular vote in Wednesday's election.

Widodo ran with Islamic cleric Ma'ruf Amin against former military general Prabowo Subianto, who secured 45 percent of votes, according to unofficial “quick counts” of sample votes by private pollsters.

“We must wait for the official result. But 12 pollsters have given clear results... We convey that the Jokowi-Maruf ticket got 54.5 percent of the vote while Prabowo got 45.5 percent,” Widodo told a news conference in south Jakarta.

Opposition party also claimed victory

At a separate news conference just minutes after Widodo declared victory, Prabowo appeared defiant and said his team had evidence of cheating and claimed to have won 62 percent of the popular vote based on internal polling.

“We have declared (victory) because we got evidence of widespread cheating at the village, sub-district and district levels across Indonesia,” he said, standing next to his running mate, Sandiaga Uno, who looked more subdued.

In 2014, Prabowo had also claimed victory on election day, before contesting the results at the Constitutional Court, which confirmed Widodo's win.

A spokesman for Praboow said he would take his complaint to the Constitutional Court if the Election Commission confirmed Widodo's victory.

Source(s): Reuters