Prabowo rejects surveys to claim big lead in Indonesia election

[JAKARTA] Indonesian presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto's campaign team has dismissed most independent opinion polls showing incumbent Joko Widodo with a double digit lead, saying the former general is on course to win next week's election by a wide margin.

Mr Prabowo, as Subianto is commonly known, will secure 62 per cent of the votes if elections were held today, his campaign team said in Jakarta on Monday, citing a survey of 1,440 respondents it carried out last week. That's up from 45 pe rcent in an internal poll last year, Sugiono, a member of the campaign team, told reporters.

With less than 10 days before voting, most surveys by independent pollsters show Mr Widodo, known as Jokowi, heading for a second five year term. Both the candidates are holding rallies across the archipelago to win over more than 10 per cent of the nation's 193 million eligible voters who are undecided about their choice. Prabowo has managed to narrow the gap in recent weeks.

Prabowo's pitch to take steps to end economic inequality, lower costs of staples and put an end to transfer of the nation's wealth overseas was increasingly finding resonance with voters, said Aryo Djojohadikusumo, a lawmaker who belongs to Prabowo's Gerindra party.

"We're here to provide an alternative and different perspective and we happen to be the opposition," Mr Djojohadikusumo said. He said investors and media should remember that "it's not in the bag for the incumbent."

Arya Sinulingga, a spokesman for Jokowi's campaign team, said Mr Prabowo's team shouldn't use its internal survey to de-legitimize the General Elections Commission and the eventual result if he loses the vote on April 17.

BLOOMBERG