Indonesia's cabinet met on Sunday amid a growing political crisis sparked by speculation embattled President Abdurrahman Wahid wanted to declare a state of emergency to stave off an impeachment threat.
A palace spokesman denied the ailing Wahid would take such drastic action, but confirmed he had discussed the idea.
Political sources said Wahid had in recent days weighed declaring a state of emergency -- which would enable him to dissolve a hostile parliament that is dragging the country's first democratically elected leader closer to impeachment.
Cabinet ministers met around mid-afternoon in the capital and were expected to address the row stemming from parliament's two censures of Wahid over his alleged role in two graft scandals. Ministers made no comments to scores of waiting reporters on a crisis that appears to be coming to a head.
Underscoring the fractured nature of politics in the fragile country, Wahid left for central Java after lunch while an unhappy Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri refused to attend the meeting.
"She's irritated (over Wahid's Java trip). She does not want to come and chair the cabinet meeting," Agnita Singedekane Irsal, deputy secretary general of Megawati's party, told Reuters after visiting the woman expected to take over Indonesia within months.
Megawati abruptly canceled her own scheduled trips outside Jakarta this weekend because of the mounting political tension.
In a clear show of strength for the daughter of founding President Sukarno, tens of thousands of her followers rallied in East Java earlier in the day, demanding she be president.
Palace spokesman Adhie Massardi played down the rumors about Wahid's plans to cling to power.
"Gus Dur does not have an intention to declare a state of emergency," Massardi told Reuters, using Wahid's nickname.
"He has discussed it in the sense he wants to know what sort of conditions need to be applied in order to have a state of emergency. The reason why he discussed it was because he had received input from ordinary people who said the (political situation) was not feasible."
Massardi said these people wanted an end to the constant political infighting, which has made Indonesia a pariah among investors and unsettled foreign governments concerned about the stability of the world's fourth most populous country -- JAKARTA (Reuters)
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