World leaders congratulate Prabowo on official victory - Asia ...
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese President Xi Jinping were among those who congratulated the president-elect.
President-elect Prabowo Subianto waves while giving a speech in Jakarta on March 20, 2024, after the General Elections Commission (KPU) certified his victory in the 2024 presidential election. Prabowo won 58.58 percent of the vote, according to the final KPU tally. (Reuters/Willy Kurniawan)
Dozens of world leaders and foreign officials have congratulated president-elect Prabowo Subianto after the General Elections Commission (KPU) certified his landslide victory in the 2024 presidential race on Wednesday.
The 72-year-old defense minister and his running mate Surakarta Mayor Gibran Rakabuming Raka, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s eldest son, won 58.58 percent of the vote, according to the final KPU tally. The pair also garnered the most votes in 36 of the country’s 38 provinces.
Among the first to congratulate Prabowo after the KPU’s announcement was United States Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who wrote in a statement that the US and Indonesia had a long-standing relationship “grounded in democracy and pluralism”.
“We extend our sincere congratulations to Indonesian President-elect Prabowo Subianto on his victory,” Blinken wrote on Wednesday. “We look forward to partnering closely with [Prabowo] and his administration when they take office in October.”
Last week, US President Joe Biden sent a letter to Prabowo congratulating him on his “lead in the presidential count”.
On Thursday, Chinese President Xi Jinping sent Prabowo a congratulatory letter saying that he attached “great importance to the development of China-Indonesia relations” under the upcoming administration.
"Under joint efforts of both sides, the development of bilateral relations has entered the fast lane, political mutual trust has been increasingly consolidated, the alignment of development strategies has been deepened and mutually beneficial cooperation has yielded fruitful results,” Xi wrote.
