Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono appears to have been handed a huge mandate to fight corruption after what could be a landslide election win.
Unofficial results yesterday gave the incumbent former general a huge lead over Opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri and outgoing Vice-President Jusuf Kalla following Wednesday's vote, despite Mrs Megawati's complaints of irregularities.
In only the second direct presidential election in the South-East Asian powerhouse since the collapse of the dictatorship of President Suharto in 1998, Mr Yudhoyono confirmed his status as the most popular leader of the new democratic era.
The peaceful vote also reinforced Indonesia's position at the vanguard of democracy in a region traumatised recently by political turmoil and oppression.
The General Election Commission website said its ''raw data'' gave Mr Yudhoyono 61.66 per cent of the vote, enough to avoid a second-round run-off.
Based on 18.72 million votes counted out of more than 170million eligible voters, MrsMegawati was second with 28.57 per cent and Mr Kalla was a distant third with 9.77 per cent, it said.
The figures, which the commission described as ''preliminary'' and ''not official'', matched six independent polling agencies' estimates putting Mr Yudhoyono at about 60 per cent and Mrs Megawati at around 27 per cent.
Mr Yudhoyono, a taciturn doctor of agricultural science who is fond of writing love songs in his spare time, thanked his supporters for his ''success'' but stopped short of claiming victory, saying that he must wait for the final results to be declared.
Mr Kalla congratulated his former running mate and boss for the past five years but Mrs Megawati described the election as an exercise in ''pseudo-democracy'' and repeated complaints about alleged fraud.
''Real democracy means, first, there are no indications of fraud,'' she said.
''In my opinion, this is a pseudo-democracy.''
Her running mate, notorious former special forces commander Prabowo Subianto, said he was preparing a legal challenge and cited an ''independent'' count which put Mrs Megawati in the lead.
Mrs Megawati, who was ousted from the presidency by Mr Yudhoyono in 2004, made similar complaints about April's general elections and before Wednesday's vote, leading to changes in voting procedures which she approved.
National newspapers paid her complaints little heed, hailing the vote as a landslide victory for MrYudhoyono and a great step forward for Indonesia's maturing democracy.
Mr Yudhoyono has promised to boost economic growth, create jobs and end a culture of pervasive corruption in the mainly Muslim country of 234 million people spanning 17,000 islands.
Under his watch the economy has weathered the global financial crisis and is expected to post 4 per cent growth this year, third only to China and India out of the G20 group of rich and developing countries.
But his signature policy is good governance and an anti-corruption drive which has netted several senior officials.
Speaking to reporters late on Wednesday, he said he would intensify programs to help the poorin a country with about 30million people living below the poverty line. AFP