Presidential candidate and incumbent Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto has received congratulatory calls from several world leaders, expressing their best wishes and hopes for future cooperation, after he took an apparent lead in quick counts of the presidential election results.

Prabowo, who ran with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s eldest son Gibran Rakabuming Raka in the presidential race, is projected to win the three-horse election in a landslide victory according to preliminary results from most pollsters.

Many quick count results have indicated that the pair have garnered 56 to 59 percent of the total vote and dominate the majority of provinces, including their rivals’ strongholds.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was among the first foreign leader who called Prabowo to express his congratulatory remarks on Thursday. He wrote in his official X account, formerly Twitter, that he was looking forward to working with the “new Indonesian president”.

“I was honored to be the first [to] speak today with @prabowo, who has a clear lead in official and unofficial counts, about my ambition for the future of Australia-Indonesia relations,” Albanese wrote.

I was honoured to be the first foreign leader to speak today with @prabowo, who has a clear lead in official and unofficial counts, about my ambition for the future of Australia – Indonesia relations.

— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) February 15, 2024

Albanese’s call was soon followed by others from Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on the same day, according to Prabowo through his X account.

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