“But let’s prioritise things that create immediate impact for Indonesians … that create quality jobs and bring about an affordable cost of living,” said Sandiaga, the former vice-governor of Jakarta.

About 2 million school-leavers enter the job market each year, and while the middle-class group is growing – with about 20 per cent of the 260 million population now falling into that category – about 1 in 10 Indonesians still lives in poverty.

Indonesia election ‘not about religion’, says Sandiaga Uno. It’s about unity – and the economy

But a Prabowo government would do better at ensuring infrastructure projects were “a means to an end”, aimed at reducing inefficiencies and providing better logistics so job-creating industries such as manufacturing could grow faster, he said.

The vice-presidential candidate described plans for a 142km fast-train railway between the Indonesian capital and metropolitan city of Bandung as “in a nutshell, a good idea”.

Sandiaga said he had looked at the “alignment [and] the specifications” of the project and concluded there were “a lot of loose ends to be tightened”.

Prabowo to review Indonesia’s Belt and Road projects if he beats Widodo in presidential election

“So we would like to sit down with them and see … In particular, some of the stops that require land clearance [are] impossible to be done in Jakarta,” he said. “Because it would deal with … relocations of thousands of families from the particular area. It’s very dense locations [that] they picked as one of the train stops.”

The affable and youthful-looking politician spent the penultimate day of campaigning at two rallies in Bandar Lampung, in south Sumatra. He said he had held more than 1,550 meetings across the archipelago in a bid to hear from as many of the 192 million voters as possible.

As his motorcade wound its way past ramshackle warungs [small eateries] and squat buildings housing small businesses, hordes of motorists and pedestrians tooted their horns and waved, raising their thumbs and index fingers to signal their support for Sandiaga and Prabowo, whose names appear second on the ballot after Jokowi and his running mate Ma’ruf Amin.

At the first rally in an indoor sports hall, about 5,000 people stood shoulder to shoulder in the oppressive heat cheering as he spoke.

Prabowo and Sandiaga have, in their bid to wrest leadership from Jokowi, promised further reforms to propel the resource-rich country to its full economic potential.

If they won, Sandiaga said, their immediate plans would be to woo investments that would bring jobs, specifically in energy to gain self-sufficiency and in agriculture as the country had fertile soil and “farmers who are very diligent and could be trained easily”.

Concerns over Prabowo’s human rights record a ‘five-yearly issue’, says Sandiaga Uno

Growing the manufacturing sector was another target and better infrastructure would help, he said.

Other low-hanging fruit would be to build new homes and grow “quality tourism that embraces sustainability, a longer length of stay and more spending for the tourism sector”, Sandiaga said. About 16 million tourists visited Indonesia last year, including more than 2 million mainland Chinese.

“There are a few others we want to focus on, but these are the quick five sectors that we think will take us to 6, 6.5 per cent growth within two years. And we’re very optimistic,” he said.

While credible surveys expect Jokowi-Ma’ruf to win the election, the race has tightened after a campaign riven by religious identity politics and fake news. Analysts have estimated that up to 30 per cent of voters, uninspired by either pair, may abstain from voting.

Undecided voters – totalling about 10 per cent by latest estimates – could also sway the outcome of the election.