Indonesia's presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto holding flowers from a supporter, as he gives a speech after the election, on April 19.INDONESIA pulled off a complex yet peaceful election across its vast - and ethnically diverse - island territory this week, cementing its place as a democratic beacon in a sea of authoritarian governments, analysts said. But the world's biggest Muslim-majority nation still faces a spike in militant Islam and myriad other challenges.
Despite the lingering uncertainty, Indonesia's democratic feat still stands in stark contrast to strongman governments in the Philippines and Cambodia, authoritarian Vietnam and Laos, Myanmar's stumbling post-junta steps and a chaotic election in Thailand, its first since a 2014 coup.
Indonesia's reputation for religious tolerance has also been tested by increasingly vocal hardline Islamists, who were emboldened after their calls to prosecute Jakarta's Christian governor for blasphemy saw him jailed in 2017. A years-long struggle with extremism was underlined last year by suicide bombings at several churches in its second-biggest city Surabaya - amid a growing gulf in society between moderate and hardline Muslims.
SaveOurDemocracy prabowo is the real winner of Indonesia's election
INAelectionObserversSOS Prabowo is winner
Prabowo is the real winner
Prabowo is win... Jokowi out