Although official results are not yet final, however, exit polls done by a number of survey organizations have all confirmed that President Yudhoyono has won a landslide vote of confidence of more than 60% among Indonesia’s 176 million voters, to rule Indonesia for a second term in the next five years.

On Wednesday, 8 July, more than 176 million Indonesians across this huge archipelago of more than 17,500 islands cast their votes to elect the Presidential team they wish to govern from 2009-2014. Voting began at 8 in the morning and closed at 13.00 hrs.

Candidate teams were : at No.1 Megawati Soekarnoputri and Probowo for VP.(known as Mega-Pro). Mega-Pro carried the slogan: “Economy for the People”.  At No. 2: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Boediono (known as SBY-Boediono) carried the slogan “Lanjutkan” or “Continue” policies set down and implemented in the past five years; and at no. 3 was Jusuf Kalla-Wiranto (known as JK-Win) with the slogan “The National Team” – since Jusuf Kalla hails from South Sulawesi and Wiranto from Java.

From all appearances, – except for over one month of open jibes and parries on TV among candidates’ success teams and supporters, – the general public had been taking things pretty calmly, going about their daily routine, as if people already knew who to vote for, this despite the constant barrage of political ads and the media trying to rev up public enthusiasm.  The feel in the air promised that these would be peaceful presidential elections. And indeed elections proceeded peacefully, democratic and generally transparent and fair.

On the day of the elections, in the morning people filed in to drop their ballot papers then spent the day at leisure in malls or recreation parks.

By 13.00 hrs. Western Indonesian Time, TV stations began airing exit polls results, or Quick Count tallies, which by that time already included results obtained in the country’s central and eastern provinces, that are under Eastern and Central Indonesian Time. (The difference between each time zone is one hour).  Earlier an injunction was requested from the Constitutional Court (MK) to stop airing Quick Count results on the day of voting, but this was overruled by the Court.  There are officially 6 Survey companies/Organizations, with each working in collaboration with a different TV channel.

Nevertheless, it is only the Election Committee, KPU, whose results will be considered as legal and official count results, but this manual count is only due to be announced on 25-27 July.

By 16.00 hrs. on the day of voting, results of the Quick Counts crystallized and have stayed constant until today.

Results among all 6 survey organizations declared an indisputable win by SBY-Boediono across the archipelago, with a landslide victory of over 60% of national votes. This means that there will be only one round of voting, much to the chagrin of those who had hoped to win through the second round.

Indonesia’s Presidential Elections Laws stipulates that there will be one round of voting when a candidate wins over 50% of national votes, and at least 20% of votes in 17 of the 33 provinces.

By the Quick Count, SBY-Boediono won almost 61% of national votes with a majority in 24 of Indonesia’s 33 provinces. Provinces where SBY came second were only in South Sulawesi, stronghold of Jusuf Kalla, and in Bali, stronghold of Megawati. In the province of Aceh, where Jusuf Kalla claimed to have been instrumental in its peacemaking, SBY won by over 92%.

Quick Count results of the different agencies gave Mega-Pro a success rate of between 26.5%- 28.1% of national votes; SBY-Boediono received between 57.4%-60.8%; and JK-Win won between 11.87%-14.5%.  The Indonesian Survey Institute, LSI, who has constantly proven to have come out with the closest estimates found the SBY-Boediono team to have won 60.85% of votes, against Mega-Pro 26.56% and JK-Win 12.59%.

Meanwhile the General Elections Committee, KPU, came out with its own tally. But at 18 million votes KPU results got stuck with – lo and behold almost similar results: SBY-Boediono at 60.72%, Mega-Pro 29.67% and JK-Win at 9.62%.  Why KPU has stopped publishing updated results still remains a mystery until today, but this has already been protested to KPU by Mega-Pro for siding with the incumbent president.

Executive Director of LSI, Denny JA explained SBY-Boediono’s victory to a number of factors, reported Kompas.  Firstly the position of SBY was already very strong even prior to the elections. During the one-month presidential campaigns, JK’s position climbed but not sufficient to push elections into a second round. Thirdly, the personality of SBY is popular and is difficult to dismiss. Fourthly, the general public is by and large satisfied with present conditions, which benefits the incumbent. Fifth, in general the public is satisfied with results given by the incumbent president; and sixth, the majority of the public in fact really wanted just one round elections.

Whereas the increase in votes for Mega-Pro, according to Denny, was pushed by Prabowo, who is a fresh face,  besides the fact that the PDIP followers have remained solid.

Meanwile, researcher of the Indonesian Science Institute, Lili Romli, is of the opinion that Yudhoyono won through a combination of personality and imaging.

A similar view is held by the Executive Director of Cirus Surveyors Group Andrinof A Chaniago. According to Chaniago the Indonesian public still favours personality before capability. With 80% of voters having secondary and lower education, the choice is heavy on personal popularity, which includes favouring the candidate’s behavior and demeanor in public even towards his rivals.

Indication that the largest part of Indonesia’s population has accepted elections results is the fact that even from the day of elections until today the public has remained calm and is going about its business as usual.

Meanwhile, President Yudhoyono confirmed that he himself and Vice-President (rival presidential candidate) Jusuf Kalla are committed to fill out their term in office together until October this year. Indeed, on Tuesday at the first Cabinet meeting after the elections, both were seen seated next to each other leading the meeting.

Although a number of shortcomings and violations in the elections are still being brought up, the peaceful and orderly general elections and recent presidential elections this year have shown that the Indonesian public has matured in the democratic process.

What can be expected from SBY-Boediono?

In his last public campaign before elections, Yudhoyono outlined 5 Agenda items and 15 Priorities for his second term when elected.

The 5 Agenda items are: (1) Improve economic performance and public welfare; (2) Build Good Governance; (3) Strengthen democracy and respect of human rights; (4) Law Enforcement and corruption eradication; (5) Fair and equal development.

While the 15 Priorities are: (1) Economic growth of minimum 7% – in Q1 2009 this was 4.4%; (2) Reduction of poverty to become between 8%-10%; (3) Reduce unemployment to 5%-6%; (4)Improve education quality and infrastructure; teacher’s welfare; and provide free education for the poor. (5). Improve health services and provide free health services to the poor. (6) Increase food sustainability in rice, beef and soy beans. (7). Realize energy sustainability through the construction of huge power plants. (8) Increase development budget for infrastructure through mega-projects.(9) Develop public housing and modest public flats; (10). Protect the environment (11) Increase defense and security with priority on the supply of military hardware. (12). Bureaucratic Reform through eradication of corruption, collusion and nepotism. (13). More equal distribution in development and decentralization of finance. (14) Strengthen democracy and respect for human rights, and (15) Increase Indonesia’s role in  international forums.

Indonesia in ‘exciting position’: World Bank chief

Meanwhile Indonesia Trade and Investments News wrote that Indonesia’s economy is set to emerge a “winner” after avoiding the worst of the global financial crisis, the World Bank’s country director said, as reported by Bloomberg.

Joachim von Amsberg, a strong supporter of Indonesia since he took up the position, said the country can expand “significantly” more than 7% once President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono fixes infrastructure including roads, ports and power plants.

“Faster growth and a maturing democracy together put Indonesia in an incredibly exciting position to come out as a winner from this global turmoil,” von Amsberg told Bloomberg in an interview on Thursday. “It shows that Indonesia is a positive outlier in the world right now.”

Indonesia’s move to increase deposit insurance, boost coordination with the central bank and strengthen bank supervision helped the nation largely avoid the worldwide credit crisis, von Amsberg said.

“If the new government shows decisiveness in overcoming some bottlenecks, that will be a huge statement,” he said.

A day after his landslide re-election, Dr. Yudhoyono pledged that he would spur growth in the country to a target of 4%-4.5% in 2009 as interest rates fall to 6% by year-end.

Dr. Yudhoyono also said that Indonesia could escape from the economic crisis by 2011.

Head of the International Monetary Fund’s Indonesia office Milan Zavadjil said Indonesia’s growth may exceed 6% after the election because Yudhoyono has a “strong mandate” to implement his policies.

On Friday, the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) expressed optimism that economic growth of 9% will be achieved in 2014, although the five-year medium term development plan (RPJM) had been designed on the basis of moderate assessments, Antara reported.

In more reaction to the presidential election, the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) said more companies are set to list their shares on the exchange, following the favorable market condition after Wednesday’s peaceful presidential election, The Jakarta Post reported.

Director for corporate grading Eddie Sugito said the election created positive sentiment in the market.

Despite slow progress, with only five companies going public in the first half of this year, IDX president director Ito Warsito is confident of meeting the target of getting 15 companies to go public by year’s end.

The Jakarta Composite Index closed the week at 2,063.09 compared to 2,075.30 a week earlier. Dealers said the market had largely factored in the likely victory of Dr. Yudhoyono before the election.  The Jakarta index has gained almost 29% since early April, due in part to expectations of a Yudhoyono victory.

The rupiah closed at 10,190 to the dollar compared to 10,210 a week earlier. (Sources: TVOne, SCTV, RCTI, Detik.com, Kompas, Indonesia Trade & Investment News)