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resident Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is still the favorite to win next week's presidential election, says the latest survey by the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI).

The survey, conducted between June 30 and July 3, and involving 3,000 respondents across the country's 33 provinces, gave Yudhoyono an overwhelming 63.1 percent of votes. It was funded by Fox Indonesia, a political consultancy contracted by Yudhoyono's Democratic Party.

"This survey was conducted to study whether the presidential debates had any significant effect on voters' preferences," LSI executive director Dodi Ambardi said Saturday at a press conference in Jakarta.

"However, we must include a disclaimer that the final debate *on July 2* was not included as a factor in this survey.

"The results conclude that the debates had no significant effect on overall voters' preferences. The support for Yudhoyono did decline, but it was not very significant."

The results show Yudhoyono's popularity dropped by 4 percent from the 67 percent recorded during the previous survey on June 20.

The survey put Megawati Soekarnoputri, from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), in second place with 19.6 percent, while Vice President Jusuf Kalla, from the Golkar Party, was last with 10.6 percent.

"Based on the survey, we can also conclude that voters had already made up their minds before the debates. Megawati and Kalla seem to have failed to chisel away at Yudhoyono's lead," Dodi said.

"Even those who watched the debates and thought Kalla came out on top, still feel they would rather vote for Yudhoyono."

University of Indonesia political expert Arbi Sanit said Yudhoyono's relatively clean track record had helped him surge build up a big lead over the other candidates.

"We all know how Megawati performed during her presidency; her running mate *Prabowo Subianto of the Great Indonesia Movement Party, or Gerindra* is even worse, because he was in fact an integral part of the dictatorial New Order era," he said.

The University of Indonesia's Maswadi Rauf said even though the debates could influence rational voters into shifted their preferences, he was rather skeptical about how significant this would be in the big picture.

He said this was because the number of rational voters was a miniscule compared to the number of irrational ones, who considered a good image the most important quality to look for in a candidate.

The Indonesian Institute for the Sciences' (LIPI) Ikrar Nusa Bakti concurred, saying, "I predicted the debates would influence many rational voters. These voters' eyes are wide open on who deserves to be elected the new president, and who is a mere pretender. These facts were clearly on show in the debates."

AGB Nielsen Media Research recorded that four of the five presidential and vice presidential debates managed to attract more than 500,000 viewers each. The final presidential debate, aired Thursday night, drew 924,000 viewers.

LSI senior researcher Burhanuddin Muhtadi said the only thing Yudhoyono's campaign team needed to do now was to watch their behavior and prevent any more faux pas.

Presidential spokesman and Yudhoyono campaign team stalwart Andi Mallarangeng was recently caught on camera saying the South Sulawesi people should choose only the best candidate, and unfortunately the best candidate did not come from the region. Andi himself is a South Sulawesi native.

"The Andi Mallarangeng issue, for instance, could be used by Kalla to raise anti-Javanese sentiments, not only in Kalla's native South Sulawesi, but in other regions as well," Burhanuddin said.

"The main question is whether Megawati and Kalla can increase their support by at least 10 percent each before election day. Only by doing so we can see the election go to a runoff."

The presidential election law stipulates a candidate must garner at least 50 percent of the vote to win outright.

The LSI's Dodi was quick to disown any conflict of interests arising over Fox's funding of the survey.

"I want to stress here there is no way we will risk our integrity as a surveyor by making up results to please Fox," he said.