(Fighting new crown pneumonia) Indonesia diagnosed with more than 310,000 new crowns and 3 local chief candidates died
China News Agency, Jakarta, October 6 (Reporter Lin Yongchuan) The official website of the Indonesian government's new crown pneumonia epidemic announced on the afternoon of the 6th that there were 4,056 new confirmed cases of new crown pneumonia in the country that day. The total number of confirmed cases has exceeded 310,000, reaching 311,176; new There were 121 deaths and a total of 11,374 deaths.
The picture shows rare passengers at a bus station in downtown Jakarta.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Lin Yongchuan
Although the epidemic that has lasted for more than seven months shows no signs of easing, the country’s local elections, which will be voted on on December 9, will still be held as scheduled.
As the candidates were intensively carrying out their election campaigns, it was reported that three candidates for local heads had died of COVID-19.
According to the report of the Indonesian Election Commission official Evi Novilda (Evi Novilda) quoted on the website of the "Jakarta Post" on the afternoon of the 6th, the person who died of the infection was the candidate for the mayor of Berau in East Kalimantan Province, Mu Haram, Adi Darma, the candidate for mayor of Bontang, and Ibnu Saleh, the candidate for mayor of Central Bangka, Bangka Belitung Province.
Evi said that according to Indonesian election laws, the political party that nominated the three candidates is allowed to change candidates.
This year is the "election year" for the local chiefs of Indonesia. 270 regions across the country will simultaneously vote to elect 9 governors, 37 county mayors and 224 county heads. The original voting date is September 23.
Due to the spread of the epidemic, Indonesian President Joko Widodo signed an emergency decree on May 4 to postpone the large-scale election campaign until the end of the year.
On July 14, the Indonesian National Assembly passed an decree on the postponement of the election of local chiefs to formally set the election polling day as December 9.
According to information published by the Indonesian media, as of now, more than 60 of the 700 candidates registered for the election have been diagnosed with new coronary pneumonia. The chairman of the Indonesian Election Commission, Arif Budiman, has also been diagnosed with the infection recently.
For fear of election campaigns as a means of spreading the virus, several major Islamic organizations including the country’s largest religious organization Islamic Confederation (Islam) called on the government to postpone the election again until the end of the epidemic, but the largest ruling party is fighting the Democratic Party Insist that the election should be conducted as originally planned.
President Joko Widodo also stated through a spokesperson that "the government cannot predict when the epidemic will end, so the voting on December 9th will continue as planned." Joko emphasized that election activities must strictly abide by epidemic prevention and sanitation regulations and require law enforcement agencies to severely sanction those who violate the regulations. (Finish)