Ex-general set for landslide victory

An Indonesian election official wearing a Javanese traditional outfit applies ink on the finger of a woman after she voted in Yogyakarta yesterday. From the remote jungles of Papua to the high rises of Jakarta, Indonesia staged the landmark elections in which a former general is set to unseat President Megawati Sukarnoputri. PHOTO: AFP

Yudhoyono was predicted to win 62 percent of the votes against 38 percent for Megawati, said the Freedom Institute, the Indonesian partner of the respected Wash-ington-based National Demo-cratic Institute (NDI).

The vote was Indonesia's first direct presidential election and a milestone in its sometimes violent transition to democracy since the fall of dictator Suharto in 1998.

Security was tight for the poll which came 11 days after a suicide bomber killed nine people outside the Australian embassy -- Indonesia's third major Islamic extremist attack in two years.

But the last of three elections this year in the archipelago of 18,000 islands seemed to pass without trouble, another step forward for a country that has often witnessed turbulent transfers of power.

Paul Rowland of the NDI said even though the figures only accounted for about half the sampled votes, the final outcome would not change much.

"Those proportions are probably very accurate," Rowland told AFP.

"Quick counts" produced by the NDI in cooperation with a local group proved extremely accurate in the two earlier elections this year.

A full official count will take weeks as polls from more than 150 million eligible voters are tallied across far-flung islands.

Yudhoyono, 55, has consistently scored nearly double the support for Megawati in opinion polls taken since a July 5 first-round vote that saw the former security minister emerge as frontrunner.