Jakarta – Small groups of Indonesian students protested in Jakarta on Tuesday, shouting their support for opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri and their anger at an IMF bail-out agreement.
A group of 30 Indonesian students wearing red headbands marched to the national parliament building, yelling "Megawati for president." They carried a large banner which said "Support Megawati, support reform."
Megawati, daughter of Indonesia's founding leader Sukarno, on Saturday called on President Suharto to step aside in March after more than three decades in office. She also said she was ready to be a presidential candidate if called upon by the people.
A handful of police kept a close eye on the students but did not intervene. The students later sang patriotic songs on the steps of the parliament building and sat in its foyer.
Separately, 25 students from the Indonesian Communication Forum of Jakarta Moslem Students protested outside the Finance Ministry in Central Jakarta as visiting U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers met Suharto.
The students carried a banner saying "We love rupiah and reject the IMF" and sold posters saying "The IMF is the agent of capitalist countries."
Indonesia agreed sweeping economic reforms with the International Monetary Fund in October in exchange for a $43 billion dollar bail-out. Summers is one of number of senior U.S. and IMF officials in Jakarta to give support to Indonesia.
Megawati was ousted as head of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) in 1996 by government-backed rivals despite her widespread popularity in a move analysts said was linked to government fears she could rival the ageing Suharto.
Her call for Suharto, 76, to quit came after the rupiah currency plummeted to below 10,000 to the dollar in the wake of a national budget handed down a week ago that analysts ridiculed for its optimistic economic projections. The rupiah was trading around 8,500 rupiah at 0430 GMT on Tuesday.
Megawati's advisors said on Monday she would take no concrete steps to move her candidacy forward and would first wait for reaction from Indonesia's 200 million people.
They said they hoped a member of the 1,000-member People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), which elects Indonesia's president and is packed with handpicked Suharto loyalists, would have the courage to nominate her as a candidate. Suharto is widely expected to stand for a seventh five-year term in March.