Tim Dodd, Jakarta – Troops fired into the air in Jakarta yesterday to disperse an angry crowd which claimed the ruling Golkar party had broken a promise to give them money and food in return for acting as a rent-a-crowd at a party rally.

The security forces intervened when the mob chased the Golkar chairman, Mr Akbar Tandjung, to his car and began to stone it. No deaths were reported.

The incident came as Golkar, once the all powerful political machine of former President Soeharto, becomes increasingly split and disorganised as it attempts to fight its first democratic election campaign.

The poll, on June 7, is less then two weeks away but the party is constantly the target of allegations that it is using the huge funds accumulated in the Soeharto years to fight a dirty election campaign.

It is also deeply split over it recent decision to back President B.J. Habibie for another term as president. Mr Tandjung, a key party powerbroker, let his frustration with the decision surface at the weekend when he told a party rally that Golkar would not necessarily support the Habibie presidential bid.

Mr Tandjung, who harbours his own ambitions to be Golkar's presidential candidate, said the party delegates would not support Dr Habibie in the presidential vote unless he mounted a serious investigation of the wealth of former President Soeharto. However, Mr Tandjung faces a credibility gap on this issue since he is a former Soeharto minister and his party apparatus used to be a slave to wishes of the former president.

Soeharto's wealth has become an election issue since a Time magazine report last week claimed it was worth $US15 billion.

Golkar's re-election campaign is not going well in Jakarta. Yesterday was an official campaigning day for Golkar and it fell very flat in comparison with the enormous crowds drawn on Sunday by a key opposition leader, Mrs Megawati Soekarnoputri, which blocked all of Jakarta's major arteries for most of the day.

However, Golkar is expected to do better in rural areas where the party's machine survives more or less intact.