Early polls point to victory for ex-army strongman and 2024

 win Indonesia’s election, securing the majority of votes needed for an outright victory, early unofficial results showed.

vent in Jakarta, Indonesia on January 27, 2024. 

Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg/Getty Images

CNN — 

A former army general is on course to win Indonesia’s election, securing the majority of votes needed for an outright victory, early unofficial results showed.

Prabowo Subianto, 72, billed as the frontrunner to this year’s vote, is placed to secure more than 50% of the vote – avoiding a runoff, according to state-owned news organization Antara, citing early quick counts by a series of non-governmental thinktanks.

Popular former governor Anies Beswadan was running second with fewer than 22% of the votes, with rival Ganjar Pranowo in third, according to the unofficial early count.

CNN cannot independently verify the early polls, though counts by reputable thinktanks have proved accurate during previous elections. Ballot stations have closed across Indonesia earlier on Wednesday.

Indonesia’s election agency will not publish official results until March.

Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous country and home to the world’s largest Muslim population. More than 200 million people across 38 provinces were expected to cast their votes on Wednesday, in what was billed as the world’s biggest single-day election.

However, posting a vote in the world’s largest archipelagic nation is a huge effort. The country is wider than the United States and straddles three time zones. It is made up of over 18,000 islands and islets, of which 6,000 are inhabited, and over 150 languages spoken across its breadth.

Young voters have been key to this year’s vote, experts note, with around half of registered voters being under the age of 40, according to the General Election Commission.

Prabowo, also the incumbent defense minister, ran for president in 2014 and 2019 but lost both times to outgoing president Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi.

This year, he teamed up with Jokowi’s eldest son Gibran Rakabuming Raka as his vice presidential pick.

This is a developing story and will be updated.