The gubernatorial election in East Java is long over, but has bequeathed the police with the task of investigating the alleged voter list fraud in Bangkalan and Sampang regencies, Madura, while prompting election contestants and the media to ensure the legislative polls go ahead freely and fairly.

The Jakarta Post's Ridwan Max Sijabat, Dicky Christanto, Indra Harsaputra and Ahmad Faisal filed several stories on the voter list scandal and its possible impact on the legislative polls this Thursday.

Despite the troubled voter lists, all 38 political parties have seemingly consented to contest the legislative elections on Thursday; but major parties threatened to reject the result if the polls were found not to be free or fair, or organized professionally and independently.

The Golkar Party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the United Development Party (PPP) and the National Mandate Party (PAN) were just four of 14 parties cautiously supporting the polls, but warning they would not endorse the results if they found indications of vote rigging or other forms of manipulation involving either the government or the General Elections Commission (KPU).

"Having different views (on the troubled voter lists) will not undermine the togetherness of all components of the nation to place and pursue the state's interests above the parties' own interests through the general elections. Therefore, the government and the KPU have an obligation to ensure the polls are free and fair, to avoid all forms of violations, including vote rigging and other vote manipulation through the IT program," Pramono Anung Wibowo, representing the 14 parties, said after their meeting Monday.

Pramono, who is also secretary of the PDI-P, said the parties had decided to continue with the polls despite the voter list fraud that has turned into a national scandal, because they were realistic about the unfeasibility of suspending the elections and revising the voter lists in just three days.

"The parties agree to deploy their supporters as witnesses at polling stations and to closely monitor the vote count by the KPU at all levels, including the use of IT systems," he said.

According to the parties, the most crucial areas for manipulation are polling stations, vote counts at subdistrict and district levels, and the KPU in Jakarta.

Pramono added the parties had invited foreign media and international organizations to help monitor the elections, which he claimed were quite prone to manipulation, clearly visible from the East Java fiasco.

"Every party contesting the elections has a chance to win the polls, but if victory is gained through manipulation, it must be rejected," he said, adding the parties had prepared legal teams to bring any violations and manipulations to court.

He also urged the police to be proactive in investigating elections violations filed by the elections supervisory board.

Golkar secretary-general Soemarsono said the voter list fraud that was initially uncovered in Madura had turned into a national scandal, after similar cases were found throughout East Java and in almost all provinces across the country.

"It's very surprising to find the number of eligible voters in Papua is 50,000 names more than the province's actual population of 2.2 million," he said.

The parties also alleged East Java was a testing ground for nationwide "electoral engineering" by certain sides to claim a major victory in the legislative polls.

"The mushrooming of voter list fraud cases and the poor distribution and quality of polling material, including ballots, are strong indication of a systematic and massive attempt to manipulate the elections. If this happens, this year's elections will be worse than the general elections in 1999 and 2004, and both the President in his capacity as head of state and the KPU should be held responsible for the elections, which have absorbed energy and huge amounts of funds," Soemarsono said.

Home Ministry's directorate general of population administration affairs admitted minor mistakes in the potential voter lists handed over to the KPU on April 5, 2008.

Citizens with two identity cards or more are registered multiple times as eligible voters, while servicemen, including police personnel, may not vote, but are still named on the lists," director general Abdul Rasyid Saleh said when showing the potential voter lists to The Jakarta Post recently.

He added the problem was really with the permanent voter lists verified and validated by the KPU and its offices at all levels nationwide. "If the potential voter lists had problems, the KPU should have fixed them during the three-month verification and validation period."

PAN secretary-general Zulkifli Hasan said the parties feared low voter turnout because not all eligible voters were registered with local polling bodies or named on the voter lists.

Democratic Party deputy chairman Anas Urbaningrum denied his party had or stood to benefit from the voter list scandal, because the voter lists were drawn up and had been used in local elections where several of the party's candidates had been defeated.