272 officials die during recount of votes

At least 272 officials died and 1,878 others became ill, mainly because of exhaustion-related illnesses, caused by long hours of manual vote-counting after the general elections held in Indonesia on April 17 .As quoted by the spokesman of the General Election Commission (KPU), Arief Priyo Susanto, quoted by Reuters.

In order to reduce costs, for the first time in the history of Indonesia, presidential elections and national and regional legislative elections were held simultaneously, which made these elections one of the most the most important days in the world.

The elections drew 80% of the 193 million voters, each of whom had to vote up to five times in one of the more than 800,000 polling stations.

According to various estimates, 6 to 7 million people worked day and night under inadequate conditions to monitor elections and calculate votes.

On Tuesday, the Indonesian Ministry of Health urged the hospital centers to fully take over sick civil servants, while the Ministry of Finance confirmed that an allowance would be paid to the families of the deceased and hospitalized.

The electoral commission has been criticized for having acted negligently. "The KPU is not careful in managing the workload of the staff," said Ahmad Muzani, vice president of the opposition candidate's campaign to the presidential Prabowo Subianto, quoted by the Kumparan site.

The final results of the presidential and parliamentary elections will be announced on May 22nd.

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