Indonesia’s early results: President Widodo wins with 54% of votes

Indonesian President Joko Widodo confirmed victory on Thursday in the race to lead the world's third-largest democracy, saying unofficial results showed his ticket had got 54 percent of the popular vote in Wednesday's election.

Widodo ran withIslamic cleric Ma'ruf Amin against former military general Prabowo Subianto,who secured 45 percent of votes, according to unofficial "quickcounts" of sample votes by private pollsters.

"We must waitfor the official result. But 12 pollsters have given clear results… we conveythat the Jokowi-Maruf ticket got 54.5 percent of the vote while Prabowo got45.5 percent," Widodo told a news conference in south Jakarta.

Prabowo has alsoclaimed victory, citing internal polls as showing he won 62 percent of thevote.

The GeneralElection Commission's website put him at about 45 percent early on Thursdaybased on results from 808 of more than 800,000 polling stations.