Elections in Indonesia: more than 270 election officials died from overwork at vote count

Ten days after the celebration of Indonesia the biggest one-day elections in the world, more than 270 election officials died, mainly from Fatigue related diseases caused for long working hours that count millions of ballots in hand, said one official Sunday.

The elections of April 17 were the first time that the country's 260 million residents combined the presidential vote with national and regional legislative elections., in order to reduce costs.

The vote was largely peaceful and it was felt that attracted 80% of the 193 million voters, that they had to score up to five ballot papers in more than 800,000 polling stations.

But proceed to the eight-hour vote in a country that stretches more than 5,000 km from its western and eastern ends proved to be a herculean and deadly logistical feat for civil servantsthey had to count the ballots by hand.

Until Saturday evening 272 election officials were dead, the majority due to overwork related illnesses, while 1,878 others became illhe said Arief Priyo Susanto, spokesman for General Election Commission (KPU).

Andreas Harsono, Indonesian Manager of the NGO Human Rights WatchHe wrote on Twitter that, in his polling station in Jakarta, "the election officials finished the vote at 2:15 am". "The vote was opened at 7 am the day before, which means that they worked almost 19 hours with only breaks for lunch and dinner ", he badured.

The Ministry of Health has published a circular letter of 23 April urging health facilities to pay maximum attention to election officials sick, while the Ministry of Finance is working on the compensation of the families of the deceased, Susanto added.

The KPU was attacked by the increase in the number of deaths.

"The KPU is not careful in managing the workload of the staff"he said Ahmad Muzani, Vice President of the campaign of the candidate of the opposition to the presidential Prabowo Subianto, according to the information website Kumparan.com.

Prabowo, who, according to independent pollsters, was the loser of the 2019 surveys on the basis of quick accounts, had argued that there was widespread fraud and his campaign claimed that some officials had voted in favor of the outgoing president, Joko Widodo. Widodo's security minister said the charges were unfounded.

Both candidates declared their victory, although the quick numbers suggest that Widodo won the election of about 9 to 10 percentage points.

KPU will complete the vote count and will announce the winners of the presidential and legislative elections of May 22nd.

(With information from Reuters)