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Manual workers crucial to the elections
Foul play: Members of the public report election violations at the Election Supervisory Committeeâs (Bawaslu) headquarters in Jakarta on Thursday
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Foul play: Members of the public report election violations at the Election Supervisory Committeeâs (Bawaslu) headquarters in Jakarta on Thursday. Bawaslu has set up an integrated law enforcement center, called Gakkumdu, to follow up on reports of election violations. (JP/Wendra Ajistyatama) (Bawaslu) headquarters in Jakarta on Thursday. Bawaslu has set up an integrated law enforcement center, called Gakkumdu, to follow up on reports of election violations. (JP/Wendra Ajistyatama)
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span class="inline inline-center">Foul play: Members of the public report election violations at the Election Supervisory Committee's (Bawaslu) headquarters in Jakarta on Thursday. Bawaslu has set up an integrated law enforcement center, called Gakkumdu, to follow up on reports of election violations. (JP/Wendra Ajistyatama)
Manual workers are working hard to prepare ballot papers at the Regional General Elections Commission (KPUD) office in Jakarta in preparation for the upcoming nationwide election on April 9.
According to the General Elections Commission (KPU) commissioner, Arief Budiman, all the paper ballots had been printed and 98 percent had been distributed to KPUDs throughout Indonesia for sorting and folding before being distribution to polling stations.
The chairman of the South Jakarta KPUD, Muhammad Ikbal, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday, that his office had hired members of the public to fold ballot papers for his region.
Ikbal added that the workers were paid Rp 120 (1 US cent) per sheet and were expected to fold at least 1,000 sheets, or one box, each per day.
'In the first few days, we only had around 30 people working for us, but now there is around 180 people ['¦] we are making way very quickly,' Ikbal said.
There are no set shifts at the South Jakarta office; the workers come in any time between 8 a.m. to midnight and are allowed an hour for lunch or dinner.
Gilang, who has been working there since March 3, said that he worked at the South Jakarta KPUD from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., but was not sure how many ballot sheets he had folded every day.
'It's good work, but it gets very repetitive,' he said.
Fatimah, another worker who had prior experience folding paper at various publishing plants, said that she could finish 3 boxes a day if she had enough energy.
Unlike at the South Jakarta branch, the North Jakarta KPUD divided their 200 day workers into two shifts; the first from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the second shift from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. The branch has a total 1.3 million ballots to fold. Each worker was required to complete at least two boxes a day, Marlina, of the Logistics and Finance Division at the North Jakarta KPUD, said.
'Due to our hardworking team, we were able to complete the sorting and folding process in only eight days. Now all that's left to do is to distribute them,' she said.
The South Jakarta office has completed the folding of 1 million paper ballots out of the 4.7 million paper ballots they received from the KPU. Ikbal added that the South Jakarta KPUD had started sorting and folding on March 3, and would like to finish by March 24.
There are only 27 more days until the election.
'After the sorting and folding, we still need to distribute the paper ballots to 3,769 polling stations,'
Ikbal said. (fss)
