Indonesian president claims election victory

Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Thursday said preliminary results indicated he won another five years in office. Widodo said he received 54 percent of the vote based on quick counts, which are a sample of polling stations by reputable survey organizations. But Prabowo Subianto, a former special forces general running for president, claimed he captured 62 percent of the vote based on his own count. Indonesia’s electoral commission will announce the final results in May.

Widodo’s campaign focused on his administration’s infrastructure development and fight against poverty, while Subianto promised economic growth by cutting food prices and reducing taxes. Some 198 million voters registered to take part in the elaborate electoral process that spanned 17,000 islands and about 800,000 polling stations.