Set for second term, Jokowi must get moving on priorities

ALTHOUGH Prabowo Subianto has not conceded defeat and, indeed, claims victory, it is almost certain that incumbent President Joko Widodo has won the Indonesian presidential elections - if previously reliable projections bear out. All credit then to the country's General Elections Commission and Election Supervisory Agency for the April 17 exercise - it was the world's largest single-day polls with 805,000 voting stations for 192 million eligible voters. Everything went smoothly.

It is a pity, therefore, that the official results are only likely to be known later this week at the earliest. The tallying process could take up to May 22. Electoral disputes will not be sorted out until August. Indonesia deserves better, and could look at India which has an efficient electronic voting system.

It is easy to see why Mr Joko - first elected in July 2014 - is likely to win. He was fortunate that he has had a relatively stable economy in office although gross domestic product (GDP) growth has been well below his own hopes for a steady 7 per cent. He cut back on costly fuel subsidies early on, and then launched the nation's largest infrastructure building programme. More than US$415 billion was spent in public works. As a result, Indonesia has thousands of kilometres of new roads, 10 new airports, 19 new seaports and many new bridges and dams. The drive from Jakarta to Surabaya (which used to take more than 80 hours) can now be done in 11 hours, via a recently completed toll highway.