Jakarta, Nov 27 : On Wednesday morning in the eastern part of Jakarta, capital city of Indonesia, a kindergarten-turned-polling station saw a flood of voters participating in the country's first-ever nationwide simultaneous regional elections.

Minutes before the voting officially started at 7 a.m. local time, many voters had already lined up, waiting to cast their ballots. To attract more voters, the polling station provided local street food stalls with Betawi-themed decorations. Betawi is the native inhabitants of Greater Jakarta, home to over 11 million people.

"We want to make it unique, traditional-looking and exciting for residents here so that they are encouraged to cast their vote in our country's first-ever simultaneous elections across all regions," Noer Ali, head of the polling station's working committee, told Xinhua news agency.

"Anyone should be happy and peaceful, not to spread hatred because we vote for different candidates," the 52-year-old added.

He also said that some who were not registered at the polling station also came over just to gather and get free Betawi traditional snacks, such as kerak telor, glutinous rice cooked with egg and served with fried shredded coconut, and ketupat sayur, the vegetable rice cakes served in coconut milk soup.

The elections were conducted in the country's 37 provinces, 93 cities, and 415 regencies, spanning over 17,000 islands and three different time zones. More than 204 million voters cast their ballots at polling stations to elect a total of 545 pairs of candidates.

Chandra Gunawan arrived at the polling station at around 8 a.m. with his parents. The 17-year-old was one of the 280 voters registered to vote at that station, and among the total of 8.2 million voters in the Jakarta gubernatorial election.

The Jakarta gubernatorial race has three candidates, which are former popular West Java provincial governor Ridwan Kamil, former Vice Head of the National Cyber and Crypto Agency Dharma Pongrekun and former cabinet secretary Pramono Anung.

Chandra later expressed enthusiasm about taking part in the electoral event by showing his inked finger, marking that he had voted.

"This is very exciting for me. My first electoral participation happened in my country's first-ever nationwide simultaneous regional elections," he said after taking selfies with his parents at the station.

Voting began at 7 a.m. Jakarta time and concluded at 1 p.m., with vote counting starting immediately and expected to continue until December 16.

Indonesia's election commission has not yet announced the specific dates to release the results. However, the inauguration of elected governors and vice governors is scheduled for February 7, 2025, while mayors, regents, and their deputies are set to be sworn in on February 10, 2025.

/IANS