Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta – Election candidates often throw political mud hoping some will stick, but Indonesia's presidential aspirants are using the real thing.

Exactly three years ago a punctured oil and gas well in East Java began oozing toxic hot sludge. Since then, more than 15,000 people have been made homeless, countless businesses have gone under, thousands of hectares of land have been rendered unusable and the company at the centre of the fiasco has remained above the mire.

That firm, PT Lapindo Brantas, is owned by the family of People's Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie, a wealthy leading light in the Golkar party, which rules in coalition with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Democrat Party.

Mr Bakrie's fortunes have declined with the global crisis, but those affected by his company's "mud volcano" disaster have had an absolutely rotten few days.

The Supreme Court announced it had thrown out a case brought by the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute calling for criminal prosecutions against 13 executives in the firm.

And despite government demands that Lapindo compensate victims, the company says the financial crisis means it can only do so in small instalments.

Many despair of ever receiving anything. The candidates for the July 8 presidential poll know this is all fertile, if murky, ground for campaigning.

Megawati Sukarnoputri, the former president described this week by a member of Dr Yudhoyono's re-election team as "a housewife who deals with chilli", says the Government has done too little.

"We have to know whether the mud's going to stop flowing or not," she said indignantly, promising that if elected she would end the empty promises.

Golkar vice-president Jusuf Kalla, now running on his own presidential ticket, told the newspaper Koran Tempo: "The Government must be stronger towards Lapindo, must be more firm."

That would, of course, be his Government, which remains in office until October.

Dr Yudhoyono, trying to avoid mud references altogether, read some of his own poetry at a campaign stop. The warrior-poet is also dealing with a dirty campaign against accusations of "neo-liberalism" – a bit of mud-slinging that seems to suggest he and running mate Boediono, a respected economist and former central bank chief, will sell the country to the highest bidder.

About a dozen rag-tag protesters gathered in the CBD during the week to add fuel to this fire.