On top of the deaths, 13,675 Voting Organising Group (KPPS) members got sick during and after the 2024 General Elections.
Siti Nadia Tarmizi, the head of communication and public services at the Indonesian Ministry of Health, confirmed that, both during and after the 2024 General Elections last week, 94 members of the Voting Organising Group (KPPS) died and 13,675 fell ill.
According to Tarmizi, 15-20 percent of the staff who died were, medically, high risk. Furthermore, most of them were around 55 years of age at the time of their death and suffered from health issues, namely being overweight, having high blood pressure, or having a history of stroke.
“The [health] screening that we did during this election was more for the sake of prevention,” Tarmizi told the media on 21st February. “We did the screening by detecting [pre-existing] illness and providing a necessary follow-up.”
Regardless of the screening process, Tarmizi also noted that exhaustion, both physically and mentally, turned out to be the main reason for death and illness among the KPPS officers.
The demanding election process is to blame. The Ministry of Health, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, told the press that he would continue evaluating the health screening process as conducted by the Indonesian General Election Commission (KPU). Even though, in comparison to the 2019 General Elections, fewer government officials fell ill and/or died sick now, Sadikin underlined how there remains room for more improvements.
“There were 823 thousand voting ballots [across Indonesia]. Let’s say that we have 10 thousand health facilities across all sub-districts. It would have been ideal if each voting ballot had one public health centre (puskesmas) standing by,” Sadikin added.
Neni Nur Hayati, from the Democracy and Electoral Empowerment Partnership (DEEP) Indonesia, believed that having the general elections simultaneously on the same day might not necessarily be a good idea.
“[General elections] cause stress and panic attacks. For instance: whenever the voting papers go missing, whenever the voting papers get switched up, whenever the voting papers that arrive are lacking, and whenever the voting papers end up arriving at the wrong post,” Hayati explained during a television talk show on the same day.