Dicky Christianto and Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – The so-called Teuku Umar Block, led by former president Megawati Soekarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), is considering not contesting the upcoming presidential elections, not out of fear of being defeated, but because of what they call the systematic and massive manipulation of the recent legislative elections. So far the PDI-P ranks third in the ongoing national tallies.

After accompanying Megawati in receiving Chairman of the Greater Indonesian Movement Party (Gerindra) Prabowo Subianto on Tuesday, PDI-P Secretary-General Pramono Anung Wibowo said that the numerous election problems, namely voter list fraud, IT problems and slow vote counting were key contributors to the camp's decision not to nominate a presidential candidate.

"Several signatories of the agreement share similar thoughts that as long as the voter list problem is not settled completely, it will be useless to contest the presidential race because the voter list manipulation strongly benefits a certain (other) block," he said as quoted by Kompas.com.

Besides Megawati, former president Abdurrahman Gus Dur Wahid, Prabowo, as well as chairpersons and senior figures from 16 other parties are signatories to the agreement and are threatening to not sign the results of the legislative polls.

Pramono stressed the move was aimed not at boycotting the presidential race but at giving political warning to the importance of free and fair elections and the PDI-P would certainly nominate its candidate if the problems were settled comprehensively. The block has set a deadline of May 9 to settle the problems.

Unlike the PDI-P, the Golkar Party expects to win around 16 percent of votes from the legislative elections, enough to realistically seek a coalition with President SBY's Democratic Party, which is expected to win some 20 percent of the vote.

Cahyo Kumolo, head of the PDI-P's election winning team and PDI-P Deputy Chairman Maruar Sirait said Megawati has never ordered party members to boycott the legislative polls and said the party was still in a position to contend in the presidential election.

"What happen is that we are filing reports containing misappropriations conducted during the legislative elections to the Election Supervisory Body (Bawaslu). A legal supporting team has been organized especially for this matter." he said.

Responding emotionally to what he perceived as a PDI-P boycott threat, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono asked the political elites and candidates to show political maturity in dealing with the election violations.

"It is hurt to be accused of cheating when we've never done that and have not even the slightest intention to do so. I also want all the problems regarding the voter lists to be settled soon. Be careful; don't be too harsh with the cheating allegations."

Yudhoyono said he was, too, engrossed with the troubled voter list, adding he had ordered Home Affairs Minister Mardiyanto to urge the General Elections Commission to fix the lists. (hdt)