Seven days of anti-government protest on the Indonesian resort island of Bali have led to all 46 members of the local legislature agreeing to resign.

The protests were directed against the President, Dr Jusuf Habibie, and Bali's former governor, Mr Ida Bagus Oka, who is now Population Minister, the Jakarta Post reported today.

Yesterday, 20,000 people thronged the compound of the legislature building, demanding that Mr Oka resign and legislators sign a statement refusing to recognise Dr Habibie as President. The protesters accused Mr Oka of corruption during his time as governor.

The newspaper said the speaker of Bali's legislature, Mr Ketut Sundria, told the protesters that all legislators would resign after the necessary administrative procedures were followed. But they refused to sign the anti-Habibie statement.

Dr Habibie took over from the long-serving and autocratic Mr Soeharto, who stepped down last month amid economic crisis and rioting in which more than 1000 people died.

Bali, famed as a holiday paradise that had been largely unaffected by the protest movement elsewhere in Indonesia, has appealed to the US President, Mr Bill Clinton, to lift a travel warning telling American citizens to stay away from Indonesia because of the risk of violence and unrest.

In Java, tens of thousands of factory workers today entered the sixth day of a strike while 900 of them picketed the provincial Parliament to press demands for better working conditions.

The picketers, crowded into six trucks, left the factories of PT Maspion, a household appliance producer in nearby Sidoharjo, and headed for the East Java provincial Parliament building in Surabaya. They vowed to stay there until a decision was taken on their demands for allowances for food, transport and overtime.

Maspion factories in Sidoharjo and Gresik remained paralysed by the strike, which began last Thursday. Yesterday 30 people were injured and several vehicles damaged when about 25,000 Maspion workers clashed with police who tried to stop them from marching to the Parliament building.

In another development the Foreign Minister, Mr Ali Alatas, said today that Indonesia could consider releasing jailed East Timorese rebel leader Xanana Gusmao as a part of a political solution for the troubled former Portuguese colony.

"I say, we can consider it (Gusmao's release) not now, but as part of an overall, comprehensive solution," Mr Alatas said after meeting President Habibie.

He said the government remained of the view that Mr Gusmao had been sentenced for criminal activities and under normal circumstances, would not be eligible for government amnesty.

"We have continuously considered the release of Xanana (Gusmao) within the framework of a comprehensive settlement over East Timor ...under such a framework, that can be considered," Alatas said.

[According to a posting by Miranda Suryadjaja, on June 12, I Ketut Sundria said in Jakarta that he and other members were not ready to quit. Although he had told protesters that he and his deputies were going to Jakarta to with the letter of resignation, in Jakarta he talked about the mechanism for the election of the new governor in Bali and nothing was mentioned about the intention to resign. According to the posting Sundria is one of the closest cronys of Ida Bagus Oka, Bali's former governor who is now minister of family planning and settlement - James Balowski.]