S Sulawesi: 2,354 poll officers, voters report sick on voting day

The South Sulawesi Health Office disclosed on Thursday that 2,354 election officers and voters reported sick and required medical treatment at several polling stations in the province on voting day on Wednesday.

They included 963 officers from the polling station working committee (KPPS), 754 voters, 145 witnesses, 144 personnel from the Community Protection Agency (Linmas), and 98 personnel from the General Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu).

Fifty-five of them needed hospitalization, while 2,270 others received outpatient treatment, head of the South Sulawesi Health Office's disease control and prevention unit, Ardadi, told local journalists here.

Owing to their hectic schedule and huge workload, on-duty KPPS personnel and officials from other related agencies deployed at polling stations (TPS) were provided mobile healthcare services by medical workers from local public health centers, he informed.

The mobile medical services were provided to prevent the recurrence of election worker deaths, as seen in the 2019 General Elections, Ardadi said.

"We do not want what had ever happened in the 2019 General Elections to recur. Therefore, we optimize medical services at local public health centers and hospitals," he added.

ANTARA has reported earlier that to prevent the recurrence of fatalities, the General Elections Commission (KPU) issued a policy restricting the age bracket of prospective KPPS recruits to 17–55 years.

On Wednesday (February 14, 2024), more than 203 million voters residing in Indonesia flocked to 820,161 polling stations to exercise their ballot.

Polling stations in 84 electoral districts in 38 provinces served registered voters from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. local time.

Soon after all registered voters had cast their votes, KPPS personnel began conducting a manual vote count for the presidential and vice presidential pairs, as well as candidates running for the House of Representatives (DPR), the provincial and district/city legislative bodies (DPRD-I and DPRD-II), and the Regional Representatives Council (DPD).

The final result of the manual vote count will be announced by the KPU by March 20 at the latest. (INE)

EDITED BY INE