71 election workers died from exhaustion, says Indonesia
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Five million paid volunteers worked at 800,000 voting booths across Indonesia in last week’s voting that lasted about six hours.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
Follow topic:
JAKARTA – Seventy-one people have so far died from exhaustion following the world’s largest single-day elections in Indonesia last week, according to the Indonesian government.
Some 4,000 others fell sick between Feb 14 and Feb 18 due to fatigue after helping to run the Feb 14 Indonesian elections,
The latest elections still claimed dozens of lives, even after the Government imposed an age cap for volunteers and mandated health checks after more than 500 polling station workers died following the 2019 vote.
Five million people were paid to work at 800,000 voting booths across the nation in last week’s voting that lasted about six hours.
More than 200 million citizens were registered to cast their ballots to elect a president, vice-president and legislators on the national and local levels.
Running a voting process in Indonesia requires working around the clock to distribute, count and report hundreds of paper ballots that could last more than 12 hours after polling booths close.
Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto has declared victory in the presidential race, citing the unofficial results of multiple quick counts. The official results will be announced by March 20. BLOOMBERG
