Michael Shari, Jakarta – Two indonesian election officials were paddling down a river in Borneo's Central Kalimantan province during the 1992 general election. Their old wooden fishing boat was loaded with empty ballot boxes, blank ballots emblazoned with the logos of the three political parties, and a spike for voters to punch a hole through the symbol of their chosen party--an aid to the illiterate. "You're all voting for Golkar, right?" the officials shouted to peasants on the river bank, referring to the ruling party. Then they spiked the flimsy ballots several stacks at a time--right through Golkar's banyan tree logo--and stuffed the boxes. The peasants just laughed, says a member of parliament who heard the story from colleagues who were there. But after 30 years under President Suharto, many concerned Indonesians are no longer laughing. Instead, they are spearheading the country's first attempt to monitor an election independently. Funded indirectly by the U.S. Congress through the National Endowment for Democracy and trained by the Philippine watchdog Namfrel, hundreds of Indonesian volunteers who call themselves the Independent Election Monitoring Committee (KIPP) plan to watch for violations at the polling sites as they spike their own ballots May 29. "We know we cannot accomplish much in just one day," says Gunawan Mohamad, KIPP chairman and former editor of the banned magazine Tempo. "It may take several elections before we make a difference."

An even-handed election is clearly not on the government's agenda. In addition to the usual tricks that can be expected when it comes time to cast ballots, the campaign rules were tilted in Golkar's favor this year. Popular opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri is not allowed to run. Public gatherings are banned. Speeches are screened by election officials. No two parties are allowed to campaign on the same day, and the streets are cleared of opposition figures when Golkar cadres come out to lobby for votes. On the final day of the campaign, Golkar will have Indonesia's TV and radio stations to itself. KIPP has been told to stay away from the nation's 300,000 polling places. "Don't stick your nose in our kitchen," Abdul Gafur, a senior Golkar official, publicly warned in April.

So deeply embedded is Indonesia's tradition of trickery that few can imagine a fair election in the archipelago. In 1992, the vote count from remote South Sulawesi reached Jakarta suspiciously fast: just one day after the election. Months later, however, eyewitnesses reported seeing the discarded contents of ballot boxes floating down a river.

Historically, complaints of violations have fallen on deaf ears. In the 1992 election, several government-appointed monitors refused to sign a document approving the ballot count in the city of Yogyakarta because they had not been allowed to watch the voting. Their protest was ignored. "No one opened their mouths," says Angerjati Wijaja, one of the monitors. "We had no frame of reference of what had happened in other countries like the Philippines."

That's where KIPP comes in--to raise awareness of how elections can be rigged. Golkar appears ready for the challenge. At a high school on Java in April, modified ballots were drawn up for an election rehearsal for 17-year-olds who will be voting for the first time. The mock ballots showed only Golkar's banyan tree. The Indonesian Democratic Party's buffalo head and the United Development Party's five-pointed star had been erased.