Voting begins in Indonesia

For the first time 150 million Indonesians choose their president.

Jakarta (AsiaNews/JP/AP) - Voting got underway across Indonesia on Monday morning in the final round of the presidential election, pitting the incumbent President Megawati Sukarnoputri against her former security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), who continued to lead all the survey polls.

Voting began after 7 am (local time) and will close 1 pm. Indonesia crosses three times zones. The first to cast their votes were the people in Papua and Maluku, which are two hours ahead of Jakarta, followed by people in East Nusa Tenggara, and Sulawesi, which is one hour ahead of Jakarta. The last voting is  Jakarta and other provinces under the Western Indonesian Time. The voters registered are 150 million on 14,000 islands.

The General Elections Commission has given two weeks to count the votes but a number of polling companies are expected to announce their "quick-count" results based on exit polls later on Monday or on Tuesday.

More than 140,000 police officers were deployed across the country amid warnings that the al-Qaeda linked militants blamed for a deadly September 9 suicide bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta are planning more attacks. The election season has so far gone off without violence, and analysts say a peaceful political transition in Indonesia will be further evidence that democracy and Islam are compatible.

The election between Megawati and SBY is the first in which Indonesia's voters will choose their leader directly, and seals a turbulent transition to democracy in the world's most populous Muslim nation since the downfall of former dictator Suharto in 1998. Under the 32-year-rule of Suharto and in 1999 elections, lawmakers acting as an electoral college chose the president. Direct elections have been a key demand by the country's reform movement.

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