Prabowo Subianto gesturing while addressing his supporters during a campaign rally in Jakarta in this file photo from Feb 10, 2024. - Reuters
JAKARTA: Defence Minister, and the country's presumptive next president, Prabowo Subianto, on Tuesday (March 5) described the country's democracy as tiring, very costly and "very messy", but said his people should be proud of a recent election that unofficial vote counts show he won.
Speaking at the Mandiri Investment Forum, Prabowo said he was not satisfied with Indonesia's democracy and there was room for improvement. He did not elaborate on the problems.
"I have participated in five general elections and let me attest, let me testify, that democracy is really, very, very tiring [...] democracy is very, very messy and costly," said Prabowo, who delivered his speech in English.
The former Army general, however, encouraged Indonesians to be proud of how they practised democracy, considering the high voter turnout in the Feb 14 election.
"The turnout was 80 per cent on average, which is not bad, considering that in many countries in the home of democracy sometimes the turnout is less than 50 per cent," he said.
The official vote count conducted by the General Elections Commission (KPU) has put Prabowo in the leading position in the presidential election, garnering a little over 58 per cent of the vote.
Former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan was on 24 per cent on Friday morning and former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo had 16 per cent. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
