Amy Chew, Jakarta – Indonesia's former ruling Golkar party said on Monday it had approached presidential frontrunner Megawati Sukarnoputri about possible cooperation but had been rebuffed.

Party leader Akbar Tandjung was speaking as Golkar began a two-day meeting to consider unpopular President B.J. Habibie's candidacy for an October 20 presidential vote. Opposition leader Megawati is the favourite, but needs support from other groups to win.

Tandjung, recently elected as parliament speaker, did not clarify exactly how far the offer of cooperation went. Megawati's party is the largest group in the 700-member People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), which elects the president, with 153 seats. Golkar is the next biggest with 120 seats.

"Our offer was not responded to positively, directly or well," said Tandjung. "We needed to approach other political parties to work together so that the MPR session could proceed according to the schedule and not be a prolonged session."

The two-day meeting at a Jakarta hotel opened amid protests by more than 200 Habibie supporters at attempts to revoke his candidacy.

A reformist faction within Golkar wants to ditch the unpopular Habibie, who later this week has to account for his actions during his brief presidency to the country's top legislature. If the speech is rejected, it effectively ends Habibie's bid for reelection.

But the leader of that faction acknowledged on Monday that Habibie's nomination would probably be retained. "It will be reviewed but the consensus will be that most probably his nomination will be retained," party deputy chairman Marzuki Darusman said.

Golkar members from the Javanese city of Yogyakarta were lobbying for Habibie's candidacy to be revoked over his handling of the East Timor crisis and the pending loss of the former Portuguese colony.

"We want the nomination of Habibie to be reviewed because of letting go of East Timor. We cannot tolerate that," said Gandung Pardiman, secretary of the Yogyakarta party chapter. "We can understand the other problems. I hope the review will be done rationally and objectively."

Habibie is under massive pressure over East Timor, after a referendum he permitted produced a resounding rejection of Indonesian rule. It sparked mass bloodshed by pro-Jakarta forces and foreign intervention backed by the United Nations in East Timor, which has upset many Indonesians.

A major banking scandal has also implicated members of his inner circle and prompted the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to suspend badly-needed loans.