JAKARTA, Sept. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- Thousands of polling stations in Indonesia started to count the ballots of the presidential election as soon as it was concluded at 13:00 Jakarta time Monday (06:00 GMT).

    The ballot count started two hours earlier in the eastern provinces like Papua and Maluku and one hour earlier in the middlepart of the country that includes East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, Bali and five provinces on Sulawesi island.

    Several polling stations in different time zone from Jakarta have completed the tally. Former security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, for instance, led incumbent President Megawati Soekarnoputri in eight out of 10 polling stations in the Bali capital of Denpasar.

    There are over 580,000 polling stations nationwide.

    The General Election Commission (KPU) has registered more than 153 million voters in the election and the number of those exercising their rights in the first round of election, which included five candidates on July 5, reached 78 percent of voters.

    However, the official tally result of the Monday's poll will not be made available immediately as the KPU has said it would deliver the result within two weeks.

    But a number of polling institutes have pledged to make public result of their quick count-based method later in the day.

    Earlier opinion polls suggested that Yudhoyono would claim a landslide victory over Megawati. Enditem