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SUBJECT [May 10] Indonesian Deputy Speaker of Parliament calls for investigations, Denmark PM calls for general election on June 5
DATE 2019-05-10
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PHOTO: Netral News. House Deputy Speaker Fahri Hamzah (stock photo).

 

On May 9, 2019, Deputy Speaker of Parliament of Indonesia Fahri Hamzah called for parliament’s Committee on Domestic Affairs to form an investigation team into the deaths of more than 500 officials during recent elections.

 

Indonesians went to the polls on April 17 to participate in the first vote in a country of 260 million people where the presidential vote was combined with the national and regional parliamentary ballots.

 

The world’s largest single-day election is estimated to have drawn 80% of the 193 million eligible voters, each of whom had to punch up to five ballot papers in more than 800,000 polling stations. But conducting the vote in a country that spans more than 5,000 km across its western and eastern tips has taken a dramatic toll of the 7 million election officials who had to count ballot papers by hand.

 

“There has never been this kind of precedent in election history anywhere in the world,” Fahri Hamzah said in an interview, and called for the Committee on Domestic Affairs to form an investigation team.

 

Indonesia’s election commission (KPU) said 456 staff had died and 4,310 had fallen sick, besides 91 members of the election supervisory agency and 22 police officers who died. The government has agreed to pay compensation of about 36 million rupiah ($2,500) to relatives of the dead, said commission spokesman Arief Priyo Susanto, with further payments to those who suffered disability or injury.

 

Data from Jakarta, where 18 staff died, showed most of the deaths involved those older than 50 who suffered from diseases ranging from heart attacks to strokes and respiratory failure, Health Minister Nila Moeloek said. "They already had risk factors, but it is true that heavier workloads, working hours, stress levels and irregular rest schedules are also added (factors)," she told a news conference on Wednesday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

PHOTO: Henning Bager/AFP via Getty Images. Social Democrat leader Mette Frederiksen.

 

Denmark’s Prime Minister Lars Leokke Ramussen called for a general election on June 5, with most polls suggesting his center-right coalition will be defeated by a more left-leaning bloc led by the Social Democrats.

 

The vote, which is set to come 10 days after European parliamentary elections, coincides with growing anxiety among Danes about climate change, immigration and welfare spending. A number of new parties will join the race, trying to lure voters with promises of much tougher immigration laws as the right end of Denmark’s political landscape grows more extremist.

 

Rasmussen, whose four-year term had been due to end on June 17, asked Danes to re-elect him in a world he said has grown more dangerous. “The world is in a state of disintegration,” he told parliament on Tuesday. Listing everything from climate change to a migration crisis, Rasmussen said that the threats Denmark faces require a “robust and responsible leadership.”

 

But voters look more inclined to hand power to Rasmussen’s opponent. Mette Frederiksen, the 41-year-old Social Democrat leader, has pledged greener policies in a country that already stands out for its strong environmental track record. Denmark is home to the world’s biggest wind turbine maker, Vestas Wind Systems, and is on course to wean itself entirely off fossil fuels by 2050. Frederiksen has also embraced a tough stance on immigration in a move that has lured voters from the right.

 

Rasmussen, 54, leads a three-party coalition that combines his Liberal Party with the Conservatives and the anti-tax Liberal Alliance. His government has relied on parliamentary backing from the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party to stay in power. But the nationalist group has lately fallen behind after more extremist parties entered the race and split the populist vote.

 

 

BY MSEAP Cyber Secretariat (mseap@assembly.go.kr)