Camelia Pasandaran – The candidate sons of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and a senior Golkar Party lawmaker are under investigation for alleged vote-buying, elections officials said on Sunday, as the 20-day campaign period ahead of this week's national legislative elections came to a close.

Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono, a House of Representatives candidate from his father's Democratic Party in East Java Province, and Jerry Sambuaga, son of veteran legislator Theo Sambuaga, who is running for the House in Jakarta, are among the 2,228 cases nationwide of alleged electoral violations during the official campaign.

The allegations that Edhie's campaign was involved in vote-buying were emphatically denied by the State Palace, while Jerry claimed election officials in Jakarta were attempting to extort him by threatening to launch an investigation unless he paid them bribe money.

Both candidates could be disqualified from Thursday's polls if found guilty by election officials.

Arif Supriyadi, head of the Elections Supervisory Committee, or Panwas, in East Java's Ponorogo district, said they received reports from the public that a Democratic Party cadre named Samuji was handing out Rp 10,000 (87 cents) notes to voters along with stickers of Edhie that said "Vote For Me."

"We received the report from the public on it, and we are still investigating the case, but we already have proof and witnesses," Arif said, adding that district election supervisory officials would investigate the case further along with the East Java provincial Elections Supervisory Committee, or Panwaslu. "We haven't decided whether we're going to report the case to the police or not." Andi Mallarangeng, a presidential spokesman, said it was impossible that a Democratic Party cadre would attempt to buy votes.

"We always campaign according to the law," he said. "Besides, Edhie was never campaigning in Ponorogo. The Ponorogo Panwas must have wrongly received the report. I don't know the case, and I don't think it is true."

Jerry Sambuaga, a legislative candidate of Golkar Party for South and Central Jakarta, was reported to the police by the Jakarta Panwaslu for allegedly distributing food supplies to constituents on March 23.

"Soon the police will take the case to the attorney general. Giving goods to constituents is forbidden by the law," said Ramdansyah, chairman of the Jakarta Panwaslu. Other election officials, who refused to be named, said Jerry attempted to bribe them with Rp 500 million to drop the case. However, Jerry denied the allegation and said the Central Jakarta Panwas tried to extort him.

"They secretly captured the event when I was distributing cheap goods at the bazaar, then one of the Panwas members, without revealing his identity, threatened to report me to the police," Jerry told the Jakarta Globe. "They were the ones that asked about money, not me."

Asked to respond to the allegations by both sides, Nur Hidayat Sardini, chairman of the national Elections Supervisory Board, or Bawaslu, said he would sanction any Panwas members who were proven to have extorted money from candidates.

Bawaslu member Wahidah Syuaib said all cases involving candidates would be investigated. "Bawaslu will not back off because it involves the son of SBY or Sambuaga," she said. "If they are guilty, we will report them to the police."

According to Bawaslu data, the courts have issued verdicts in 30 cases from the public campaign period, sentencing 29 people to between 3 and 12 months in prison. The most common violations included campaigning out of schedule, using children to campaign, using state facilities and vote-buying.

Golkar topped the list of violations with 158, while the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, or PDI-P, was second with 116 cases and the Democratic Party third with 115 cases.