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By APD writer Aditya Nugraha
**JAKARTA, July 1 (APD) ** – Indonesia’s election organizer, the General Elections Commission (KPU), officially declared Joko Widodo on Sunday as the nation’s president until 2024 after the highest justice institution of MK reaffirmed his win in April poll.
Widodo picked a senior Muslim cleric Ma’ruf Amin as his vice president in his second five-year term.
“We hereby set candidate pairing Joko Widodo and Ma’ruf Amin, who earned 55.5 percent votes, or 85,607,362 from the total eligible votes, as the elected president and vice president for the period of 2019 – 2024,” KPU Chairman Arief Budiman said in a plenary meeting held in KPU premises here.
The session was attended by Widodo and his pairing Amin without the presence of their candidate rivals Prabowo Subianto and Sandiaga Uno.
The MK has rejected the entire cases that Prabowo filed in his poll lawsuit on Thursday. Prabowo claimed that the poll was heavily marred with frauds that led to his defeat.
In his remarks to address the official declaration for his second presidential term, President Widodo reiterated his call for the people to end the obvious tension among the society emerged during the elections process.
“Without exemption this country needs everybody to work hard in developing our nation. We will start the hard work tomorrow,” President Widodo said.
Widodo’s re-election led to his marvelous records in Indonesian elections as he was never defeated in the regional and nationwide elections during his bright career as state official.
Widodo was successfully elected as a major in Central Java province’s city of Surakarta in two five-year periods since 2005, won the gubernatorial race in the capital city of Jakarta in 2012 and eventually elected president in 2014.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
