IN A shady shop porch in central Medan, the biggest city in the province of North Sumatra, votes are being counted. A young man tirelessly unfolds each ballot, holds it up and announces the candidates marked to a handful of onlookers. Behind him, a woman wearing a floral hijab tallies the votes on a large piece of paper that is taped to the shop’s bright blue wall. Polling monitors from assorted political parties count along too. The main race on the ballot, for governor, pits Djarot Saiful Hidayat, the candidate of a coalition led by the president’s Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, or PDI-P, against Edy Rahmayadi, who is backed by an alliance of Islamist and nationalist parties. Early estimates suggest Mr Edy will win easily.
In all, provinces accounting for 175m of Indonesia’s 260m people went to the polls on June 27th, including the four most populous: West, East and Central Java, and North Sumatra. The president, Joko Widodo, known as...Continue reading
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