Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta – The presidential partnership of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Boediono, along with their campaign team, have so far launched the most attacks against their rivals through the media this campaign season, a study has found.

Strategy PR, a public relations company, studied nearly 320 articles containing hostile or negative campaign messages and found around 40 percent of them involved the incumbent President and his team.

"Still, there were around 165 articles directing attacks against the SBY-Boediono ticket," Strategy PR director Ali Nurdin said Monday.

The company analyzed the news coverage from seven newspapers – Jurnal Nasional, Kompas, Koran Tempo, Media Indonesia, Republika, Rakyat Merdeka, Suara Karya and Suara Pembaruan – and the Antara, detik.com and Inilah.com news portals from June 1 to June 22.

It found 27 percent of smear campaigns were perpetrated by the Jusuf Kalla- Wiranto pair and their support teams, 24 percent by the Megawati Soekarnoputri-Prabowo Subianto ticket and their teams, and the rest by scholars.

Political expert Lili Romli said most attempts to criticize the opposition did nothing to educate voters because they targeted the personality of the candidates, not their programs. "Campaign attacks are good if they target the weaknesses of programs promoted by rival candidates," he said.

Jajat Burhanudin, executive director of the Center for Islam and Society Studies at the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University, also lamented the tendency for candidates to attack the personality of rival candidates.

"The campaign teams should be more creative in launching campaign strategies against their opponents, otherwise they could backfire on their own candidates," he said.