Ten days after Indonesia held the world’s biggest single-day elections, more than 270 election staff have died, mostly from fatigue-related illnesses caused by long hours of work counting millions of ballot papers by hand, an official said on Sunday.
The 17 April elections were the first time the country of 260 million people combined the presidential vote with national and regional parliamentary ones, with an aim to cut costs.
Voting was largely peaceful and was estimated to have drawn 80 per cent of the total 193 million voters, who each had to punch up to five ballot papers in over 800,000 polling stations.
The Mayor of Bogor, Bima Arya (right two) visited the officers of the Voting Organizing Group (KPPS) in the Hospital, Bogor. Source: AAP
But conducting the eight-hour vote in a country that stretches more than 5,000 km from its western to eastern tips proven to be both a Herculean logistical feat and deadly for officials, who had to count ballot papers by hand.
