The 2020 regional elections had a high turnout despite being held during a pandemic, the government has claimed.

Speaking in a meeting with regional heads and election organizers in Yogyakarta on Monday, Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD said he was grateful for the voters’ participation on Dec. 9 and claimed that no new infection clusters had emerged from election crowds.

Mahfud said the voter turnout "increased from 69.02 percent in the 2015 regional elections to 75.82 percent this year".

All 269 regions hosting the 2015 polls also participated in Dec. 9 elections, plus Makassar in South Sulawesi, which had to redo its 2018 mayoral race this year after a blank box won the majority two years ago.

The voter turnout was slightly below the General Elections Commission's (KPU) target of 77.5 percent from the more than 100 million registered voters this year.

The government and lawmakers had insisted on hosting the elections during the pandemic, despite critics calling for a postponement, and the KPU found itself under pressure to draft special health measures for the Dec. 9 polls.

Mahfud said the government had accommodated the many concerns of various parties who warned about the emergence of new virus clusters, and it had taken into account the public’s suggestions in its decision-making process.

“I express my gratitude to all mass organizations and NGOs that have objectively contributed to the success of the elections, despite previous concerns.”

KPU commissioner Hasyim Asyari said the data on voter turnout reported by Mahfud was official data from the KPU presented by KPU chairman Arief Budiman during Monday’s event in Yogyakarta.

The figure, however, was not final yet because the KPU has not finished counting voter turnout in three provinces, namely East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), Papua and North Kalimantan.

The highest voter participation occurred in the eastern part of Indonesia.

Provinces with the highest participation rates were West Sulawesi with 87.70 percent, Southeast Sulawesi with 87.48 percent and Gorontalo with 86.20 percent. At the regency level, the highest voter turnout occurred in Pegunungan Arfak in West Papua with 99.25 percent, East Boolang Mongondow in North Sulawesi with 94.94 percent and South Boolang Mongondow with 94.54 percent.

On the same occasion in Yogyakarta, Home Minister Tito Karnavian said Indonesia could be a good example for other countries on how to successfully run an election during a health crisis.

“It went quite well. The assertiveness of members of the Indonesian Military, the National Police and public order agencies to prevent crowds after they finished voting in polling stations eased the job of election administrators in the stations,” Tito said.

But political experts and election activists who closely observed the Dec. 9 polls continue to doubt the government’s claim that no new COVID-19 clusters had emerged from the elections. They have urged the government to take post-election measures by testing election officials who had met with countless people and worked around the clock in ensuring voting day went smoothly.

But even without the elections, epidemiologists said the government should have scaled up swab testing nationwide — and not antibody testing, which often produces inconclusive results and cannot be used for diagnostics. They believe that the scaleup could suppress Indonesia’s positivity rate to below the ideal rate of below 5 percent, as opposed to the country’s high rate of 18 percent on Monday. The number of people swab tested nationwide was above 30,000 per day this month, with occasional decreases on weekends.

“If every voter participating in the elections did a swab test, many [new COVID-19] cases would be found,” Indonesia Political Review executive director Ujang Komarudi told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

Parameter Politik Indonesia executive director Adi Prayitno said that although the government claimed the elections were conducted safely and exceeded earlier predictions that the turnout might fall below 50 percent, it still had to pay a huge price after it was reported that election organizers had fallen sick.

Meanwhile, based on the Constitution and Democracy (KoDe) Initiative’s observations, most of the problems that arose during the elections were categorized as election violations and crimes.

Of the 230 issues found, 48.26 percent were related to money politics, election administrators’ bias, voter suppression, overdue campaigns, the destruction of ballot papers and mistreatment against campaign teams.

Other issues included health protocol violations and technical and logistical constraints in regard to the distribution of ballot papers and personal protective equipment.