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Indonesian Cabinet Meeting Discusses Recommendations for President
Indonesian cabinet ministers finished a three-hour meeting on Sunday evening, discussing the options and recommendations for the embattled President Abdurrahman Wahid ahead of a parliament session that may lead to his impeachment.
Most of the cabinet members present at the meeting, except Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab and other three minor ministers.
The meeting was held to "discuss the thinking and recommendations of the team of seven to be handed to the president and the vice president," said a press statement issued at the end of the meeting read to journalists by an official.
The statement said the meeting -- held in the absence of both Megawati, who usually chairs cabinet meetings, and the president who left for a pilgrimage in Central Java earlier Sunday -- discussed "the framework for a solution to the political problems currently faced by the nation."
It did not elaborate on the options. But officials have cited power sharing between the president and the vice president, and an early general election.
Sunday's meeting had been hastily convened amid a deepening leadership crisis, in which Wahid is fighting for his political life against a parliament bent on impeaching him or persuading him to step down in Megawati's favor.
The meeting also came after Wahid and his staff on Saturday had to deny reports that he planned to replace army chief General Endriarto Sutarto with a loyalist general.
The meeting was opened in mid-afternoon with Coordinating Minister of Political, Social and Security Affairs Susilo Yudhoyono in the chair. There was no sign of Megawati, who rushed back from Singapore Friday for talks with army generals and canceled plans to address a mass rally to mark the 28th anniversary of her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) in Malang, East Java, on Sunday.
Indonesian House of Representatives is due to convene on May 30 and is likely to call for a special session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) to demand an account from the president on his rule so far.
Rejection of his account would mean Wahid's ouster from the presidency.
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