Retired general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono after casting his ballot. (Reuters)

Jakarta, July 5 (Reuters): Retired general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took the lead today in Indonesia’s first direct presidential election that strengthened democracy in the world’s most populous Muslim country after decades of authoritarian rule.

Yudhoyono was projected to win 34 per cent of the votes, not enough to avoid a second round run-off election on September 20, an independent count of votes showed.

A representative sample of votes by the US-based National Democratic Institute and a local research organisation showed President Megawati Sukarnoputri won 25 per cent, while another retired general, Wiranto, took 24 per cent. That margin was too small to say for certain who Yudhoyono would face in the run-off, said the group, whose projections have been highly accurate in the past.

From primitive tribesmen in far eastern Papua province and Hindu farmers in Bali to trendy Jakarta office workers and beleaguered residents of strife-torn Aceh in the west, Indonesians turned out in force for the landmark election.

Unofficial reports put turnout at more than 80 per cent, with voters expressing delight about directly electing their President six years after the fall of long-time autocrat Suharto.

Opinion polls ahead of election day had shown Yudhoyono, who resigned as Megawati’s security minister in March and is backed by a small, new party, with a commanding 20 to 30 per cent lead over his four rivals. But Wiranto, the candidate of the largest party in parliament, and Megawati had formidable campaign machines that turned out their voters.

A number of ballots were incorrectly punched due to confusion over the folded ballot paper, said Gunawan Hidayat, national coordinator for the People Voter Education Network, which deployed 100,000 monitors.

The election commission ordered them counted as valid and Chairman Nazaruddin Sjamsuddin saw few irregularities. “The general impression is everything has gone smoothly,” he said.

Megawati, the daughter of Indonesia’s founding father, Sukarno, proved unable to jump-start a sluggish economy and clean up rampant corruption during three years in power.

“I am very disappointed with the current government. Megawati seems weak,” said Gafur Latuconsina, 54, a rice seller in Ambon, capital of the Molucca Islands in the far east.

President Megawati Sukarnoputri after voting. (Reuters)

In the old-money Jakarta precinct of Menteng, a frail-looking Suharto, the ex-general who ruled for 32 years before stepping down amid student-led protests in 1998, cast his vote early.

“This is a wonderful transition from authoritarian rule to purely democratic rule in just six years and the people of Indonesia are to be congratulated,” said former US President Jimmy Carter, one of hundreds of international poll monitors.

Previously, a national assembly chose leaders in the nation of 17,000 islands and 220 million people, about 85 per cent of them Muslim.

Voters were attracted to Yudhoyono as an honourable soldier who unlike Wiranto was untainted by a human rights scandal during his military career.

With all the candidates drawn from Jakarta’s political elite, little divided the top four on major policy issues. None called for an Islamic state and some analysts said the election underlined the compatibility of democracy and Islam.

The vote followed a messy shift to democracy since Suharto quit, a period marred by political chaos and economic crisis.

Investor fears of election-related violence hurt shares and the currency, but the campaign and voting were peaceful.

“The market is betting that whatever the outcome of the vote, policies will remain market friendly,” said Thio Chin Loo, currency analyst at BNP Paribas in Singapore.