Vaudine England, Jakarta – President Abdurrahman Wahid is due to answer questions from a fractious Parliament today in what will mark the beginning of formal moves against him by a body he once dubbed a "kindergarten".
A plenary session of the House of Representatives (DPR) will ask Mr Wahid to explain why he sacked two economics ministers in April. The State Enterprises and Investment Minister Laksamana Sukardi was sacked despite a record as perhaps the cleanest man in the Government. Trade and Industry Minister Jusuf Kalla also lost his job.
Mr Laksamana has been a leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), led by Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri, while Mr Kalla is an old-guard figure from the former ruling Golkar party. The two parties combined to force the holding of this "interpolation".
But Mr Wahid helped provoke the questioning by failing to issue an explanation at the time for the sackings and then saying they were due to allegations of corruption against the two men.
Political gossip about the loss of respected Mr Laksamana suggested he refused to be part of a corrupt business deal involving members of his party and of the National Awakening Party (PKB) – the party which Mr Wahid founded and to which Mr Laksamana's replacement as minister, Rozy Munir, owes allegiance.
Mr Wahid has the right to appoint and fire cabinet members, but Parliament has latched on to the sackings as a weapon to wield against a president weakened by ill-health, indecisive governance and with an aura of scandal.
Today's presidential grilling precedes a special annual session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) on August 7, which will hear Mr Wahid's account of his presidency so far.
Parliamentary leaders say they will criticise Mr Wahid's determination to decriminalise communism, his failure to stop fighting in the Malukus, the failure so far to bring former president Suharto to trial, and the painful slowness of economic recovery efforts.
A senior PDI-P MP, Heri Achmadi, warned Mr Wahid to take today's session seriously. He said if the president's answers were unsatisfactory, the DPR could, after three months, call on the MPR to convene a special assembly session – which could dismiss Mr Wahid if it found him to have violated the constitution or assembly decrees.
The run-up to parliament's muscle-flexing session has seen the major political players outlining their positions. A Golkar leadership meeting this week, which Ms Megawati attended, was the latest occasion for DPR speaker and Golkar chairman Akbar Tanjung to assail Mr Wahid's presidency. He blamed the country's problems squarely on Mr Wahid in a critical 30-minute address.
"President Wahid, whom we all respect, has failed to take advantage of the opportunity to recover the economy. Instead, the President has exacerbated the situation by making controversial statements that only confuse the public," said Mr Tanjung.
MPR chairman Amien Rais, to date the most emphatic presidential critic, told a group of Muslim students that next month's assembly session would be a turning point "to see whether the President fell or survived".
Prosecutors will today seize a plot of land owned by tax-free charity foundations set up by former president Suharto, a spokesman for the attorney-general's office, which is investigating fraud at the foundations, said last night.