Voters handed former General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono a landslide victory in Indonesia's first direct presidential election after he pledged to fight terror and fix the battered economy, according to official results announced yesterday.
The US-educated candidate will be inaugurated on Oct. 20. Markets and foreign governments will be anxious to see how he intends to fix the problems facing the world's most populous Muslim nation.
PHOTO: AFP
The official results of the Sept. 20 election showed Yudhoyono with 60.62 percent of the vote, ahead of President Megawati Sukarnoputri's 39.38 percent. A total of 115 million people voted.
Yudhoyono was to deliver a formal acceptance speech later yesterday. But earlier in the day, he already began speaking like the new leader.
"I will arrange the makeup of the next government and a program for the first 100 days, and then will explain to the people what the government is truly working for," he told reporters.
A running tally of votes had shown Yudhoyono with an insurmountable lead in the election for more than a week, but he had declined to claim victory and Megawati had refused to concede ahead of the official announcement.
The election was the first in which Indonesia's 210 million people were able to vote directly for their president. The poll was praised as a key step in the coun-try's transition to democracy after the downfall of ex-dictator Suharto in 1998.
Voters hungry for change were impressed by Yudhoyono's grasp of the issues facing the country and his honest image.
Yudhoyono attended officer training college in the US and is popular in Washington because he is seen as a better partner in the war on terror than Megawati was.
Yudhoyono's party holds only 10 percent of the seats in the country's parliament, and some analysts have predicted legislators might block new legislation. Yudhoyono has played down those concerns, and his aides have said the size of his victory gives him a mandate to push through reforms.
Yudhoyono will be Indonesia's sixth president, and the fourth since Suharto's downfall amid nationwide riots and pro-democracy protests.
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