Razor-wire parliament set to census Wahid

Indonesia’s parliament met in Jakarta behind razor wire and barricades today with disgruntled politicians calling for a second censure to be issued against President Abdurrahman Wahid - setting the scene for possible impeachment.

"The president has increasingly lost the confidence and support of the people," said Dwiria Latifa, speaking on behalf of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, the largest bloc in the legislature.

"We urge the parliament to deliver a second censure," she said to the cheers of other legislators.

The party is headed by popular vice president Megawati Sukarnoputri, Wahid’s most-likely successor and the daughter of Indonesia’s founding leader, Sukarno. Without her support, Wahid’s political fate appears bleak.

A protracted constitutional brawl between Wahid and the legislature has complicated the south east Asian nation’s uneasy transition to democracy and worsened its deep economic crisis.

However, fears of mass demonstrations in support of Wahid - which have spooked financial markets - appeared to have fizzled out after he called on his followers to stay off the streets.

Nevertheless, thousands of police and troops guarded the legislature and were deployed at potential trouble spots across the capital.

The city remained calm, although about 2,000 pro-Wahid demonstrators rallied peacefully at the national monument, near the presidential palace.

Over the past 18 months Wahid has annoyed politicians by refusing to bend to a number of demands and by making dozens of seemingly extravagant foreign trips while domestic problems festered.

Parliament last year launched an investigation into his alleged involvement in two corruption affairs.

He has flatly denied knowledge of a scam in which a business associate is believed to have siphoned off $4m from the pension fund of the state’s main food agency.

He has also denied any wrongdoing in a second scandal in which he admits accepting a $2m personal aid donation from the ruler of neighbouring oil-rich Brunei.

MPs said he should have declared the gift and complain that the money has not been accounted for.

Some of Wahid’s more extreme loyalists have formed paramilitary squads and have offered to die for him. Claiming to have magical powers, they have threatened to kill senior opposition figures if Wahid is ousted.

Many are from the president’s home province of East Java, where Wahid, known by his nickname, Gus Dur, is revered as an Islamic holy man and sage. For them, his removal from office would be akin to sacrilege.

Indonesians are tired of street protests after years of bloody unrest since the fall of authoritarian President Suharto in 1998.

And, initially at least, Wahid did little to hold back his zealous supporters, apparently gambling that their threats would scare off hostile MPs.

But yesterday Wahid did condemn the use of violence in front of about 30,000 supporters at an outdoor Muslim prayer rally.

Refusing to be intimidated, most parties in the 500-member legislature openly support the censure, which will be the second issued against Wahid in the past three months.

Under the constitution, the president has one month to respond to the reprimand. If the parliament is dissatisfied with his reply, it can then ask the People’s Consultative Assembly, Indonesia’s highest legislative body made up of the Parliament plus another 200 appointees, to start impeachment proceedings.

Wahid, who used to head Indonesia’s largest Muslim organisation, was elected by MPs in October, 1999, as the nation’s first freely chosen president after more than four decades of dictatorship.