1Berita English – Storage warehouse for ballot boxes at the office of the General Election Commission (KPU) in Kepulauan Selayar, South Sulawesi, was flooded due to heavy rain.

As a result, 168 ballot boxes were damaged.

“Yes, it’s true, the number of damaged ballot boxes is 168,” said KPU Selayar member Muhammad Arsat to CNNIndonesia on Wednesday (10/1).

Nevertheless, Arsat assured that the logistics for the 2024 election ballots were not stored in the flooded warehouse.

“The ballots are safe. Only the ballot boxes stored in the KPU Selayar office warehouse were affected by the flood,” he explained.

According to Arsat, the storage warehouse for the ballot boxes was submerged in water up to 10 centimeters, causing hundreds of ballot boxes to be damaged and requiring replacement.

“Actually, it’s only wet at the bottom of the boxes up to 10 centimeters, but it’s categorized as damaged or unusable and needs to be replaced,” he clarified.

Meanwhile, Chairman of KPU Selayar, Andi Dewantara, stated that as a result of the incident, the storage warehouse for election logistics had to be relocated to a safer place.

“Yes, I moved it. There is no other option. There is no option to stay there. The direction is from the Regent because we use the PGRI Building, assisted by the Regional Government. So, the PGRI Building is on the 2nd floor, a spacious meeting room,” said Andi Dewantara.

Dewantara ensured that they had met all the standard operational procedures for managing the election logistics storage warehouse.

“All the requirements of the SOP for warehouse management have been fulfilled,” he affirmed.