JAKARTA - The official vote count for the Jakarta elections out on Friday (Feb 17) all but confirmed that the race is headed for a second round, with incumbent governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama and his deputy Djarot Saiful Hidayat facing off with their challengers Anies Baswedan and Sandiaga Uno.

The interim results posted on the General Elections Commission (KPU) website show that the Basuki-Djarot ticket had 42.9 per cent, or 2,357,587 votes from Wednesday's polls, while Anies-Sandiaga received 40 per cent, or 2,200,646 votes.

As neither had garnered the majority votes needed to win, a run-off between them will be held on April 19. The third pair of candidates, Mr Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono and Ms Syliviana Murni from the Democratic Party, did not make the cut because they only had 17 per cent, or 936,609 votes.

These figures will still need to be verified by the KPU in the coming weeks, but as expected they closely mirrored the exit polls and quick counts that pollsters released on polling day.

Mr Agus, a former army major and the eldest son of former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, had conceded the election late on Wednesday based on the snap polls.

All eyes are now on which candidate his support base will gravitate to at the run-offs, which is expected to be another tight race.

There are 7.1 million registered voters in Jakarta, and 5,494,842 votes cast means the KPU had achieved its target of a 77 per cent turn-out.

The official results of the Feb 15 simultaneous elections will only be announced on March 4 after all ballots have been verified by KPU officials.

The two top performing candidates will campaign from April 6 to 15, followed by a three-day cooling-off period before polling day.

The final results are expected in May.