Joko Widodo

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo has beaten rival Prabowo Subianto to win a second term in office. Widodo – widely known as Jokowi – and his vice-presidential running mate, Ma’ruf Amin, won the April 17 election by a 55.5 percent to 44.5 percent margin over Prabowo and Sandiaga Uno.

Indonesia’s election was billed as one of the most complicated single-day ballots ever undertaken. For the first time, it held its presidential and legislative elections on the same day, with more than 245,000 candidates running for over 20,000 seats. Some 192.8 million people were eligible to vote across the archipelago’s 17,000 islands, and more than 800,000 polling stations and six million election workers were involved.

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, is an outpost of democracy in a Southeast Asian neighborhood of authoritarian governments and is forecast to be among the world’s biggest economies by 2030. A second term for Widodo, the first Indonesian president from outside the Jakarta elite, could further cement the country’s two decades of democratization.

Facts about Indonesia

• The Komodo dragon, found in Indonesia, is the largest lizard in the world, growing up to 3 meters (9.8 feet) in length.
• The world’s largest flower, Rafflesia Arnoldi, weighs up to 7 kg (15 pounds) and only grows on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia.
• Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world.
• Indonesia is the largest archipelago in the world with more than 18,000 islands.