(8 Jul 2009) SHOTLIST
Jakarta, Indonesia
1. Wide of Jakarta street
2. Pan of election commission office
3. Change focus from barbed wire to police on guard
4. Police water canon in front of election commission
5. Various of residents waiting for polls open
6. Various of elderly woman walking to ballot booth and voting
7. Voters waiting to vote
8. Elderly woman putting ballot paper into ballot box
9. Cutaway of security officer
10. Various of people casting their votes
11. Wide of polling station
Dili, East Timor
12. Indonesian embassy in East Timor sign
13. Various of voters walking into polling station
14. Voter checking his name from board
15. Close of voting paper
16. Voters queuing
17. Official checking voter registrar
18. Voters waiting to vote
19. Man cast his ballot paper
20. Various of Indonesian police guarding embassy
STORYLINE:
Indonesians cast their votes on Wednesday in the emerging democracy's second direct presidential election, with the incumbent favoured to win a single-round victory on the back of recent economic and political stability.
Polling booths opened across Indonesia's three time zones, from Aceh in the west to remote Papua province in the far east.
Many polling stations were accompanied by heavy security but there was as yet no reports of any incidents.
In the former province of East Timor, now a nation in its own right, around 3670 voters turned out to cast their ballots.
Opinion polls indicate that current President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who won his first five-year term in 2004, will get the necessary 50 percent plus one vote to defeat two opponents and avoid a September runoff.
Yudhoyono is competing against Megawati Sukarnoputri, a former president whose father was the first post-colonial leader of Indonesia, and Vice President Jusuf Kalla, the front man of the ex-dictator's political machine, Golkar.
Before dictator Suharto was ousted in 1998, Indonesia was under brutal authoritarian rule for decades, and until recently was wracked by secessionist battles and suicide bombings by al-Qaida-funded Islamic militants.
Today, the predominantly Muslim country of 235 (m) million is enjoying a level of harmony its critics had said was impossible, with its economy growing at 4 percent a year amid a severe global downturn.
Still, Indonesia faces huge obstacles in attracting foreign investment to improve its crumbling infrastructure, creating an independent judiciary, and reducing poverty of up to 100 (m) million people.
It has also struggled to stop illegal logging and mining that are depleting its natural resources and causing global warming.
Around 176 (m) million people are signed up to vote at more than half a (m) million polling stations.
The Constitutional Court sided with an opposition demand this week that other citizens, possibly tens of (m) millions, will be allowed to make last-minute registrations to exercise their right to vote.
The National Election Commission has been widely criticised for failing to compile a list of registered voters, as it did in the April elections.
Yudhoyono's rivals, while providing no proof, claim that millions of people will be unable to participate.
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