Indonesians vote in presidential election

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesians voted Wednesday in their emerging democracy’s second direct presidential election, with the incumbent expected to win a single-round victory thanks to recent economic and political stability.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has won popular support on a campaign of anti-corruption and financial support for the poor. Opinion polls indicate that Yudhoyono, who won his first five-year term in 2004, will get the necessary 50 percent plus one vote to defeat two opponents and avoid a September runoff.

Polling booths opened across Indonesia’s three time zones, from Aceh in the west to remote Papua province in the far east, without any reports of incidents.

“I voted for SBY,” said Fransiscus Bokeyau, a 40-year-old elementary school teacher in Papua, referring to the president’s initials. “People feel free of fear and peaceful under his leadership. Slowly the standard of living and the economy in Papua are improving.”

Before dictator Suharto was ousted in 1998, Indonesia was under brutal authoritarian rule for decades, and until recently was wracked by secessionist battles and suicide bombings by al-Qaida-funded Islamic militants. It suffered towering unemployment after the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98.

Today, the predominantly Muslim country of 235 million is enjoying a level of harmony its critics had said was impossible, with its economy growing at 4 percent a year amid a severe global downturn.

“We are optimistic our candidate will win in a single round based on recent poll results,” Andi Mallarangeng, Yudhoyono’s campaign spokesman, said on the eve of the election. People “want the continuation of stability in politics, security and economy.”

Still, Indonesia faces huge obstacles in attracting foreign investment to improve its crumbling infrastructure, creating an independent judiciary, and reducing poverty of up to 100 million people. It has also struggled to stop illegal logging and mining that are depleting its natural resources and causing global warming.

Most public opinion polls in Indonesia are funded by political parties, but even the surveys paid for by Yudhoyono’s opponents put the 59-year-old former general 10 percent ahead of the closest rival. Pro-Yudhoyono pollsters give him a 30 percent lead at 70 percent of the vote. Yudhoyono needs 50 percent of cast ballots to win in one round.

Yudhoyono is competing against Megawati Sukarnoputri, a former president whose father was the first postcolonial leader of Indonesia, and Vice President Jusuf Kalla, the frontman of the ex-dictator’s political machine, Golkar.

Leaders of the country’s military past still play an active role in politics. The courts, police and parliament are regularly ranked among the most corrupt institutions in the world by anti-graft watchdogs.

The running mates of Yudhoyono’s opponents, former generals Prabowo Subianto and Wiranto, have faced accusations by U.N. prosecutors and rights groups of atrocities during the dictatorship, but are expected to win millions of votes.

Yudhoyono has gained a reputation as a clean politician and a leader who cracked down on the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network blamed for a series of attacks between 2002 and 2005 killed more than 240 people, most of them foreign tourists on Bali.

The Indonesian Survey Circle, which has accurately forecast previous elections, predicted in a poll published Monday that Yudhoyono would win more than 50 percent of the popular vote. It said Sukarnoputri and Kalla would garner less than 30 percent.

The independent agency said it conducted 2,000 face-to-face interviews in the nationwide survey in mid-June, and that it has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. It declined to tell The Associated Press who commissioned the survey.

Around 176 million people signed up to vote at more than half a million polling stations. The Constitutional Court sided with an opposition demand this week that other citizens — possibly tens of millions — will be allowed to make last-minute registrations to exercise their right to vote.

The National Election Commission has been widely criticized for failing to compile a list of registered voters, as it did in the April elections. Yudhoyono’s rivals — while providing no proof — claim that millions of people will be unable to participate.

AP reporter Zakki Hakim in Jakarta contributed to this report.