Teary Megawati accepts poll result
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 Yudhoyono becomes Indonesia's first directly elected president in a landslide win.
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JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri has tearfully accepted the result of the country's first direct presidential elections.
The daughter of founding President Sukarno has now cleared the way for Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to take the reins.
"Whoever has been chosen, we must graciously accept it, because the victory is a victory for all of us," Megawati said in a speech on Tuesday to thousands of soldiers at a parade ground in the capital, her voice breaking as she choked back tears.
"We have succeeded in concluding a national task ... for the first time in the history of the Indonesian republic we have chosen a president and vice president directly in an orderly and safe manner."
The U.S.-educated Yudhoyono had been waiting for Megawati's concession before claiming victory. But she stopped short of conceding defeat to her former security chief, who won a landslide victory on a groundswell of support for his promises to inject fresh life into the economy and fight corruption.
Megawati's team has threatened to challenge the vote count from some areas and they have until Thursday to file a complaint over the count at the Constitutional Court.
Indonesia's election commission on Monday declared the former security minister a winner, taking 60.6 percent of the vote compared to Megawati's 39.4 percent
Foreign and local election observers have said there are no major irregularities that should affect the overall result in the world's third largest democracy.
Yudhoyono has asked the international community to work with the world's most populous Muslim nation, and the United States and Australia have already congratulated him on his win.
After a 32-year dictatorship, Indonesia has stumbled through four presidents in six years. Under Suharto's dictatorship, lawmakers acted as an electoral college, choosing the president.
Yudhoyono left his post as security minister under Megawati in March after a public dispute over his political ambitions.
He is set to be sworn in on October 20 to become the fifth president in six years in this nation of 210 million people.
One of Yudhoyono's most serious challenges is to merge Indonesia's old system of party politics with the direct vote.
A new parliament will be sworn in on Friday, but the strongest and most entrenched political parties -- part of a coalition that backed Megawati -- are in disarray leaving the former security chief with a fractured government.
Analysts say it may take months for political parties to reorganize and appoint new leaders leaving an opening for Yudhoyono to establish himself and move swiftly with an agenda for change.
Yudhoyono has said his Cabinet would mostly comprise professionals, unlike previous governments that drew heavily from Indonesia's major political parties, hindering cohesion and sparking division.
"The problems we face are complex, and we will tackle them one by one. We will work hard to solve them, and we will all need to work together," Yudhoyono has said.
CNN Jakarta Bureau Chief Maria Ressa contributed to this report.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
