Salim Osman, Jakarta – It was supposed to be the first face-to-face debate between presidential candidates in Indonesian electoral history.

But the session turned out to be far from history in the making as there was no real debate between the three candidates, concluded analysts and viewers who watched the two-hour live telecast of the event on Thursday night.

Many found the presidential debate – the first of three such sessions organised by the General Election Commission (KPU) - staid and dry.

The event brought President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his two challengers, Vice-President Jusuf Kalla and former president Megawati Sukarnoputri, together on the same stage at a television studio in Jakarta.

The topic was 'creating good governance, the rule of law and the supremacy of human rights', but there was little real discussion of the subject by the three candidates.

Many who were at the studio felt let down because there was no meaningful exchange – reminiscent of the 2004 presidential election campaign, during which candidates made TV appearances before a panel of experts to field questions.

Before the debate started, KPU chairman Abdul Hafiz Ansary said: 'I hope this debate will enable candidates to better present their visions to the electorate.'

However, most analysts present at the studio thought the lack of clear differences between the three candidates would make it difficult for undecided voters to pick one come July 8.

'Voters will be hard-pressed to choose because there is no difference between the candidates,' said Ms Sri Budi Eko Wardhani, who heads the political study centre at the University of Indonesia.

Another University of Indonesia academic Arbi Sanit said: 'It's a misnomer to call this a presidential debate because there was no real debate, no bitter exchange between the candidates.'

Analyst Andrinof Chaniago noted that the way the debate had been conducted stood in stark contrast to the vigorous campaigning in the field, where the candidates have been hurling barbs at one another.

TV viewer Hambali Zainuddin, a 40-year-old apartment manager, said he was disappointed. 'The show looked flat and boring,' he said.

Interestingly, the absence of a real debate was deliberate. Just hours before the event began, all three candidates declined to address or question one another at the debate, thus side-stepping any potentially bitter exchanges.

Originally, KPU had planned a session at which the three could field questions to one another, but it was cancelled at the request of Mr Kalla's campaign team leader, Mr Burhanuddin Napitupulu.

'It's not ethical to see the candidates engage in verbal sparring. Let the moderator do the questioning,' he told the Seputar Indonesia daily.

KPU member Gusti Putu Artha said that based on presidential election laws, the themes for such debates and the way they are conducted must be agreed to by all candidates.

'All three candidates rejected the segment where they could question one another – maybe because they want to be civil and not appear hostile towards one another,' he added.

Former presidential spokesman Wimar Witoelar noted that the three candidates did make some political points during the session, even though they might have disappointed viewers who had hoped to see recriminations and rebuttals fly.

He also stressed that the true significance of the debate went beyond the exchanges at the TV studio on Thursday.

'The real story lies not in the quality of the debate but in the fact that the debate took place at all,' he wrote in a commentary in The Jakarta Post yesterday.

'Eleven years ago, it would have been a Star Trek-like fantasy that presidential candidates would someday engage in an open debate on national television,' he added.

He was referring to the authoritarian days under Suharto, when presidential elections were non-existent and Indonesia never had more than a single candidate running for office.