Joko and Prabowo meet as friends

Friendly rivals: Joko (right) talking with Prabowo during their meeting on a subway in Jakarta. — Reuters

JAKARTA: Indonesia’s president and his defeated election rival met for the first time since the divisive April poll and rode together on a recently opened subway in the capital, signalling a calming of political tensions in the world’s third-largest democracy.

In a choreographed spectacle, President Joko Widodo and former special forces gene­ral Prabowo Subianto met and embraced yesterday at a gleaming new subway station in Jakarta and sat together chatting on a short train trip.