Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the former general and servant of a dictator who became one of South East Asia’s most successful leaders, looks to become the first Indonesian President to be democratically re-elected in tomorrow's general election.

Most opinion polls suggest that Mr Yudhoyono will win an outright majority, eliminating the need for a second round of voting. The result would represent a triumph for his cautious, unshowy style of politics and confirm the remarkable political stability which has developed in Indonesia, only eleven years after the fall of the longstanding dictator, Suharto.

“God willing, in the next five years, the world will say, 'Indonesia is something – Indonesia is rising,’" he said on Saturday at a rally of supporters of his Democrat Party.

Mr Yudhoyono’s principal challenger is Megawati Sukarnoputri, leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle, who served as President before being defeated by him in 2004. Behind her in the polls is Jusuf Kalla, the serving Vice-President.

If SBY, as Mr Yudhoyono is known to Indonesians, fails to win at least half of the votes, and at least one fifth in half of the country’s provinces, then the leader and runner up will compete against one another again in September — a potentially unpredictable situation that would provoke intense competition for the support of the eliminated third place loser.

All three candidates talk in broad terms about the importance of justice, the alleviation of poverty and an end to corruption, although the two underdogs espouse a more nationalistic line.

Mrs Megawati served a disappointing term as President, but benefits from her status as daughter of Indonesia’s founding President, Sukarno. Mr Kalla is a successful businessman whose party, Golkar, is a reformed version of the late President Suharto’s political vehicle.

The most striking difference between them is not their policies, or even personalities, but their running mates. Mr Yudhoyono’s candidate for vice-president is Boediono, an economist and former Governor of the Bank of Indonesia, but his rivals have allied themselves with two of the most controversial characters from Indonesia’s recent history.

Mr Kalla is running with Wiranto, the former head of the Armed Forces, who was indicted, although never brought to trial, for crimes against humanity by United Nations prosecutors investigating the violence that followed East Timor’s vote for independence from Indonesia.

Mrs Megawati has made an even more incongruous alliance with Prabowo Subianto, a former general in the Indonesian Special Forces, and the son-in-law and protégé of Suharto. He defended his patron by kidnapping young human rights activists, several of whom have never been seen since.

Mr Yudhoyono’s campaign has emphasised a continuation of the policies of the past four years, including aid and food subsidies to the poor and economic stability. Indonesia has weathered the global financial crisis, certainly compared to the catastrophic Asian economic crisis of 1997, which directly led to the fall of Suharto the following year. Unusually among its Asian neighbours, Indonesia’s economic growth is more than 4 per cent, although unemployment remains uncomfortably high at 8.2 per cent.

A dispute over lists of eligible voters, that have been found to contain millions of false or multiple names, as well as omitting many eligible citizens, appeared to have been resolved today after representations by Mr Yudhoyono’s opponents. Indonesia’s Constitutional Court announced that Indonesians who had not been registered could still vote tomorrow by showing identity cards.

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