Politics

Indonesia Election Scenes: Post-election protests leave six dead

by Sourav
May 22, 2019 19:21

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6 people have been dead and 200 injured during mass protests against the re-election of Indonesia president Joko Widodo- a statement by the Jakarta’s governor Police forces said they could not say the exact figure but they had received words that “some people had died”.

The Protest was started off peacefully in the capital Jakarta on Tuesday but soon escalated setting cars on fire and throwing firecrackers at police. Police reacted via riot gear suit and fired tear gas to disperse the crowd.

At a press conference on Wednesday, police did not mention the exact figures given by the Governor Anies Baswedan but say they have received word that "that some people [were] wounded and some died". For now, it remains unclear what causes the deaths.

69 protestors have been arrested on the occurrence of violence said the National Police Spokesman M Iqbal. He said a direct conclusion can be assessed from these events that they were not spontaneous masses. They were anarchy going directly against the authority.

The protests erupted after Mr Widodo beats his long term rival Prabowo Subianto in the elections.

The Jakarta government said post-mortems would be conducted to know how people died.

On Tuesday, the country election commission confirms the presidency of Mr Widodo taking 55.5 % of votes.

President Arch rival Mr Prabowo has accused the opposition of cheating.

In 2014 elections too, the ex-general lost the presidential race against Mr Widodo and further went on to challenge the results but remains unsuccessful.

A more than 192 million population was qualified to vote in the elections that takes stage on 17th April. After the announcement of results, thousands of people gather together in the support of Mr Prabowo going in front of the election supervisory building but later dispersed to other areas of Jakarta after the intervention of the police.

By evening the protestors were turned violence and various Local TV stations telecast the standoff between the police & protestors in different parts of the city.

More than 30,000 troops have been employed at the city in anticipation of suspected violence.