More than 270 Election Staff Died from Overwork in Indonesia

• 04.29.2019, 09:01
•  World

AP/T. Syulfana

Ten days after Indonesia held elections, at least 272 election workers have died from illnesses caused by long hours of polls-related work, an official said on Sunday, DW reports.

Arief Priyo Susanto, the spokesman for Indonesia's General Elections Commission (KPU), said that as of Saturday night, 272 election officials had died from overwork, while 1,878 others had fallen sick.

Susanto said the Finance Ministry is working to provide compensation for families of the deceased, while health facilities will be given to the sick election staff.

The April 17 Indonesian elections were a massive undertaking, with presidential, parliamentary, regional and local elections all taking place at the same time in a country with 193 million eligible voters spread across three time zones; from Papua in the east to the tip of Sumatra over 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) away in the west.

According to the Australia-based think tank Lowy Institute, these five simultaneous elections combined more than 245,000 candidates, contesting a total of 20,000 seats in local, regional and national legislatures. The elections involved nearly 6,000,000 workers and 810,000 polling stations. Lowy dubbed it the "world's most complicated election."