Jakarta, Dec 10 (IANS) At least 28 people have died mostly from fatigue-related illnesses after helping manage Indonesia’s first-ever nationwide simultaneous regional elections last month, a senior Home Affairs Ministry official said on Tuesday.
“As of last Sunday, 28 poll workers have died following the 2024 regional elections. Most of them passed away from fatigue and heart attacks,” said Bima Arya Sugiarto, deputy home affairs minister, during a meeting at the parliament building.
The world’s largest-scale single-day regional elections took place on November 27 to select governors, mayors, and regents across the country’s 37 provinces, 93 cities, and 415 regencies, spanning over 17,000 islands and three different time zones. More than 204 million voters cast their ballots at polling stations, Xinhua news agency reported.
According to Sugiarto, during the country’s 2019 presidential election, more than 700 election staff and over 70 supervisors passed away, while in the 2024 presidential election, the number of fatalities decreased to 181 election staff and 48 supervisors.
He promised that the ministry will conduct further evaluations to prevent such incidents in the future.
“This is our note for the future to improve the system together both technically and administratively,” he said.
–IANS
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