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JAKARTA: Indonesia held nationwide regional elections on Wednesday and more than 100 million voters are expected to cast their ballots, despite warnings that the poll would worsen the nation’s COVID-19 crisis.
The archipelago of nearly 270 million – the world’s third-largest democracy and the world’s fourth-most populous nation – delayed voting originally scheduled for September as it struggled to contain rising infection rates.
But the polls were rescheduled, even as critics warned of risks amid widespread violations of virus protocols, including wearing masks and social distancing.
“I’m afraid that many more people will get infected and die” after the polls, said Siti Zuhro, a political analyst at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences.
Hundreds of hopefuls compete for 270 seats, including regional governors, district chiefs and mayors, including President Joko Widodo’s eldest son.
The vote was expected to conclude around noon local time (1:00 pm Singapore time).
More than 100 million Indonesians are registered to vote in the poll that features nearly 2.7 million poll workers, with some carrying ballot boxes to hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
At least five election candidates have reportedly died so far and more than 1,000 election agency employees were infected before voting day.
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More than 580,000 Indonesians have been confirmed to have contracted the disease, while the death toll is 18,000.
But the true scale of the crisis is believed to be much greater in a country with one of the lowest testing rates in the world.
Infections could skyrocket to over a million after Election Day, warned Hermawan Saputra of the Indonesian Association of Public Health Experts.
“The most worrying thing is that not only young and healthy people will cast their vote, but also older people, pregnant women and sick people – all are at high risk,” he said.
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“Public service announcements and health protocols are not enough. Health is being overtaken by political demands and that is very worrying. It is not worth it.”
Amid the pandemic, voters have also had little chance to interact with candidates or understand their platforms, dealing a blow to a democracy that rose from the ashes of Suharto’s authoritarian era two decades ago, analysts said.
Widodo’s son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, 33, is running for mayor of the city of Solo in Central Java, where his father, a former furniture salesman better known as Jokowi, got his start in politics.
Jokowi’s son-in-law is also running for the job, raising questions about whether the Indonesian leader is trying to create a political dynasty more than a year into his second and final term.
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Vice President Ma’ruf Amin’s daughter and Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto’s niece are also running for elected office.
Meanwhile, Islamist parties seek to make great strides in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation as they face a wave of growing religious conservatism.
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