At least 57 poll workers died throughout Indonesia's recent parliamentary and presidential elections, according to the Health Ministry.
The death toll among election workers was recorded in 14 provinces as of February 17, according to the ministry's data that ANTARA received in Jakarta on Sunday.
The ministry recorded 29 deaths of local poll administrators (KPPS), ten deaths of Community Protection Agency (Linmas) personnel, nine deaths of witnesses, six deaths of election officers, two deaths of voting workers, and one death of an Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) officer.
Regarding regions, the ministry recorded 13 deaths in West Java, 12 in East Java, 11 in Central Java, and six in Jakarta.
The remaining deaths were found in North Sumatra (2), South Sumatra (2), Banten (2), West Kalimantan (2), South Sulawesi (2), Riau (1), West Sumatra (1), Yogyakarta (1), East Kalimantan (1), and North Sulawesi (1).
In terms of age group, 18 deaths were found among the poll workers, aged between 41 and 50 years; 15 deaths (51-60), eight deaths (31-40), seven deaths (21-30), five deaths (above 60), and four deaths (17-20).
Meanwhile, in terms of causes of death, the ministry noted that the causes included heart disease, accidents, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, hypertension, cerebrovascular, and multiple organ failure.
Related news: Bawaslu helps arrange funerals of electoral officials who died on duty
The Indonesian Health Ministry also recorded that 8,381 poll workers were also being treated in hospitals. Some 4,281 of them were the KPPS personnel.
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 KPU will announce the final result of the manual vote count by 20 March at the latest.
Related news: Presidential vote data from 64.8% polling stations on Sirekap: KPU
Editor: Bayu Prasetyo
Copyright © ANTARA 2024
