Rivals claim voter fraud as Prabowo stays on track to be president

Campaign teams for Anies and Ganjar, who trail in the vote count, plan to work together

- Hariz Baharudin

JAKARTA - While signs indicate that Indonesian Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto will be the country's next president, not everyone is convinced, with some alleging that the election process has been unfair and dubbing it the "death of democracy".

Mr Prabowo is on course to win the election by a wide margin, election commission results showed on Feb 16 afternoon with about 51 per cent of votes counted.

The final result is not expected until March, but early indications point to the former general succeeding popular outgoing leader Joko Widodo.

Mr Prabowo leads with 56.85 per cent of votes, more than twice his nearest rival, according to the election commission's website.

Meanwhile, vote share for former Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan, an independent candidate, stood at 25.15 per cent on Feb 16, and former Central Java governor Ganjar Pranowo, the candidate fielded by the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), had 18 per cent.

Neither candidate has conceded defeat, with their campaign officers alleging that there has been voter fraud despite independent analysts finding no such evidence so far.