Jakarta – Tensions around Indonesia's leadership crisis seeped into a centenary commemoration Wednesday of the country's founding ruler Sukarno when a partisan crowd cheered his daughter, the vice president, but jeered the embattled leader.

President Abdurrahman Wahid, desperately trying to avoid impeachment, was jeered by the crowd of some 30,000 when he arrived at the ceremony here to rename the country's largest stadium in honour of Sukarno, born 100 years ago.

Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri, Sukarno's eldest daughter, was welcomed with loud cheers from the crowd, most of whom wore the red T-shirts of her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP). Wahid was again jeered when he addressed the hostile audience.

He and Megawati, sitting side by side in the VIP box, were joined by the anti-Wahid speakers of both houses of parliament, Akbar Tanjung and Amien Rais, who were also greeted with jeers. Rais is widely blamed for depriving Megawati of the presidency in spite of her party's lead in the 1999 parliamentary elections and handing it to Wahid instead.

Wahid was full of praise for Megawati's father. "Bung Karno [brother Sukarno] belongs to all of us, the whole Indonesian nation," he told the hostile crowd. "Therefore it is not out of place if we name our biggest sports stadium after Bung Karno." He also suggested Indonesia's highest mountain, the 5,050 meterfoot) Puncak Jaya, be named after the charismatic independence hero turned president.

Wahid praised Sukarno as someone who "championed humanitarianism" and compared him to the father of Indian independence, Mahatma Gandhi. "Maybe few people know that Sukarno is a follower of resistance without violence, taught by Mahatma Gandhi. We should respect him in every way," Wahid said.