2019 Indonesian Presidential Election

General elections were held in Indonesia on 17 April 2019. For the first time in the country's history, the president, the vice president, members of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), and members of local legislative bodies were elected on the same day with over 190 million eligible voters. Sixteen parties participated in the elections nationally, including four new parties.

The presidential election, the fourth in the country's history, used a direct, simple majority system, with incumbent president Joko Widodo, known as Jokowi, running for re-election with senior Muslim cleric Ma'ruf Amin as his running mate against former general Prabowo Subianto and former Jakarta vice governor Sandiaga Uno for a five-year term between 2019 and 2024. The election was a rematch of the 2014 presidential election, in which Jokowi defeated Prabowo. The legislative election, which was the 12th such election for Indonesia, saw over 240,000 candidates competing for over 20,000 seats in the MPR and local councils for provinces and cities/regencies, with over 8,000 competing for the People's Representative Council (DPR) seats alone. The election was described as "one of the most complicated single-day ballots in global history". Jokowi's 85 million votes were the most votes cast for a single candidate in any democratic election in Indonesia's history, exceeding the record of his predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who won 73 million votes in 2009.

On 21 May 2019, the General Elections Commission (KPU) declared Jokowi victorious in the presidential election, with over 55% of the vote. Widodo's PDI-P finished first in the DPR election with 19.33%, followed by Prabowo's Gerindra with 12.57%, then Golkar with 12.31%, the National Awakening Party (PKB) with 9.69%, the Nasdem Party with 9.05%, and the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) with 8.21%.

Following the election, reports of the more than 7 million election workers, among which 569 had died during the lengthy voting and counting process, surfaced. Prabowo's campaign team claimed that the deaths were linked to fraud that disadvantaged him. As of 9 May 2019, the election commission (KPU) said the dead included 456 election officers, 91 supervisory agents and 22 police officers.

In the early morning of 22 May 2019, supporters of Prabowo protested in Jakarta against Jokowi's victory. The protest turned into a riot, which left eight people killed by security officers and over 600 injured.

Background

Elections in Indonesia were previously held separately, with a 2008 elections law regulating that presidential and legislative elections be held at least three months apart from one another. Following a 2013 Constitutional Court lawsuit, however, it was decided that the 2019 elections – which would have been the 12th legislative election and the 4th presidential election – would be held simultaneously. The stated intent of the simultaneous election was to reduce associated costs and minimize transactional politics, in addition to increasing voter turnout.

In the 2014 presidential election, Jakarta governor Joko Widodo defeated former general Prabowo Subianto to become the seventh President of Indonesia. Despite initially having a minority government, Jokowi later managed to secure the support of Golkar and the United Development Party, giving him control of the legislature. In the legislative elections of the same year, former opposition party PDI-P managed to secure the largest share in the DPR, ahead of Golkar and Gerindra.

Despite plans to introduce electronic voting, the DPR in March 2017 announced it would not mandate e-voting in the 2019 elections because of hacking fears and because of the lack of nationwide internet coverage. On 7 April 2017, the KPU, the General Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) and the Ministry of Home Affairs held a meeting with the People's Representative Council's special committee to deliberate a draft law concerning the 2019 elections. The Chairman of the House special committee deliberating the bill, Lukman Edy, announced on 25 April 2017 that Wednesday, 17 April 2019, had been agreed upon as the date for the elections.

Nominations of candidates for the national and regional legislatures as well as candidates for president and vice president were completed in September 2018. The campaign period was from 13 October 2018 to 13 April 2019 followed by a three-day election silence before the voting day on 17 April. The final results were planned to be announced on 22 May, while the inauguration of the president and vice president was scheduled for 20 October 2019.

Electoral system

The election was regulated by Law No. 7 of 2017. The KPU, a legally independent government body was responsible for organizing the election. In addition, the vote was monitored by the Bawaslu, which also had the authority to rule on violations of election rules (e.g. administrative errors, vote-buying, etc.). Any ethical violations committed by either Bawaslu or the KPU were to be handled by the Elections Organizer Honor Council (Dewan Kehormatan Penyelenggara Pemilu DKPP), which consists of one member from each body and five others recommended by the government.

Voters were given five ballot papers: for the president and vice president, Regional Representative Council (DPD), People's Representative Council (DPR), provincial council, and regency/municipal council (''DPRD Provinsi'' and ''DPRD Kabupaten/Kota'') members. Voters used a nail to poke a hole in the ballot paper indicating which party pr candidate they wish to vote for, and then dip their fingers in ink as a precaution against voter fraud. Tabulation of the votes was done manually on paper. The KPU is legally required to announce the results of the election within 35 days of the vote, i.e., before 22 May 2019.

Presidential vote

To run for the presidency, a candidate had to be supported by political parties totalling 20% of the seats in the DPR or 25% of the popular vote in the previous legislative election.^{:Art. 222} Political parties were allowed to remain neutral if they were unable to propose their own candidate. However, if a neutral party(s) was able to endorse their own candidate, they were required to do so, or face being barred from participating in the next election.^{:Art. 235}

The voting procedure followed a two-round system, with voters simply choosing one of the candidate pairs. A winning candidate was required to win a majority

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