
Jakarta (VNA) – More than 100million voters in Indonesia were expected to head to the polling stations onDecember 9 to cast their vote in the simultaneous regional head elections(pilkada) in 270 regions comprising nine provinces, 224 districts and 37cities.
Earlier, the Indonesian governmentannounced that December 9 would be a public holiday and vote count is projectedto wrap up on December 20.
2020 pilkada will decide the results of thepresidential election in the next four years.
As the COVID-19 pandemic spurred concernover the spike of new cases, the Indonesian government in June decided topostpone the election date to December 9.
The country’s General Election Commission(KPU) has introduced health regulations for a total of 298,939 polling stationsacross the country. A separate voting location will be zoned off for voterswhose body temperature is higher than 37.3 degree Celsius.
As of December 8, Indonesia had reported586,842 COVID-19 infections, with a death toll of 18,000. At least fourcandidates died of COVID-19 and 60 others tested positive with the SARS-CoV-2that causes the disease.
On the threshold of the election, thousandsof poll workers were found to contract the virus./.