Anita Rachman – If senior political figures, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, plan to fight explosive allegations about them in US cables leaked on Friday, they had better find credible data to back them up, analysts have warned.

The Age, an Australian newspaper, on Friday published a report based on a series of secret cables released to it by WikiLeaks, revealing US diplomats' views on various figures and including a note from the US Embassy in Jakarta that it had doubts about the integrity of Yudhoyono himself.

J. Kristiadi, an analyst from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the government was now in a duel with The Age. "They are competing to provide credible data," he said.

Kristiadi said he was unsure how much damage the leaks would do to the president and his government because the country's image was already not very clean, but he believed ties with Australia and the United States would not be affected.

He said the government should not panic, stop dismissing the reports and instead prove to the public that the allegations were false. Various officials, including some close to the president, have denied the allegations, but so far, no one has provided decisive supporting evidence.

Ikrar Nusa Bhakti, a political observer at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said Yudhoyono was a darling of Canberra and was unlikely to make a fuss to the Australian government about the report.

He said Yudhoyono's administration had been less truculent than past governments that had canceled ministerial visits and even closed access to shipping lanes in Indonesian waters because of critical media reports.

However, he said the president needed to provide a clarification, backed by credible facts. The reports, he added, "seem, to a certain degree, to be correct, because the information came from his aide. If he wants to be angry, the one he should go after is his aide, not The Age."

Burhanuddin Muhtadi, an analyst with the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), said it was unlikely Indonesia-US ties would be affected by the leaks, but that Yudhoyono might feel disappointed because he had been trying to foster better relations with the United States while its diplomats were busy spying on him.

"The president will also find problems concerning his good image, which he is known to have been carefully building," he said.

Burhanuddin also said the government's knee-jerk response to the leaks was only fueling speculation. State officials, he said, should have remained calm and simply dismissed the cables as "raw material."

Meanwhile, Airlangga Pribadi, a political analyst from Surabaya's Airlangga University, said both the State Palace and government should be transparent in their probe of the allegations.

Failure to do that, he said, would only strengthen people's distrust of Yudhoyono, eventually compromising his popularity and his policies.