The General Election Commission website said its 'raw data' gave Dr Yudhoyono a massive 61.66 per cent of the vote, enough to avoid a second-round run-off in September. -- PHOTO: AP
JAKARTA - INDONESIAN President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono promised stronger economic growth on Thursday a day after apparently being re-elected in a landslide on the back of pledges to fight graft and poverty.
MR KALLA congratulated his former running mate and boss for the past five years, but Mdm Megawati described the election as an exercise in 'pseudo-democracy' and repeated complaints about alleged 'fraud.'
'Real democracy means, first, there are no indications of fraud,' the 62-year-old daughter of independence hero Sukarno said late Wednesday after the exit polls showed her winning just over a quarter of the vote.
Unofficial results gave the liberal ex-general a huge lead over opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri and outgoing Vice-President Jusuf Kalla following Wednesday's vote, despite Mdm Megawati's complaints of irregularities.
In only the second direct presidential election in the Southeast Asian powerhouse since the collapse of the Suharto dictatorship in 1998, Dr Yudhoyono confirmed his status as the most popular leader of the new democratic era.
The peaceful vote also reinforced Indonesia's position at the vanguard of democracy in a region traumatised recently by political turmoil and oppression.
The General Election Commission website said its 'raw data' gave Dr Yudhoyono - known simply as SBY - a massive 61.66 per cent of the vote, enough to avoid a second-round run-off in September.
Based on 18.72 million votes counted out of more than 170 million eligible voters, Mdm Megawati was second with 28.57 per cent and Mr Kalla was a distant third with 9.77 per cent, it said.
Official final results are not expected for days or weeks but the commission's provisional results matched the findings of six independent polling agencies.
Dr Yudhoyono, a taciturn doctor of agricultural science who is fond of writing love songs in his spare time, thanked his supporters for his 'success' but stopped short of claiming victory, saying he had to wait for the final results. He said his first priority was economic growth in a country that has already set an impressive pace despite the global financial meltdown.
'The recovery process can go faster. We hope that by 2011 the global economy would have healed,' he told reporters following his first cabinet meeting after the election. 'We really hope that (growth) will be about 4.0 to 4.5 per cent... These are among the best figures in the world after China and India.'
He also promised to encourage investment, create jobs and reduce the number of Indonesians living below the poverty line from the current 32.5 million. -- AFP
