Jakarta – The Indonesian press yesterday slammed President Abdurrahman Wahid's refusal to explain to parliament his decision to fire two ministers, and warned that he was courting a political disaster of his own making.

Newspaper editorials almost unanimously expressed concern that Mr Abdurrahman's failure to answer the House of Representatives' (DPR) demand for an explanation would deepen the confrontation between him and the legislature and spark a new political crisis.

The Media Indonesia daily said the President's "defiance" showed his refusal to recognise that the president and the parliament are constitutionally equal. "If only the questions put forward by MPs had been answered, tension between the executive and the legislature would have melted away," the daily said. "It is a shame that Mr Abdurrahman Wahid did not provide answers but created a new dispute instead," it added.

The Jakarta Post, in an editorial entitled "Don't blow it Gus!" said he had "squandered a rare chance to come clean before the nation", and urged him to back down before it was too late. "It is not too late for the President to do the right thing. He still has a chance with the written responses he is expected to submit to the House on Friday," it said.

The Muslim-oriented Republika charged that the President's refusal to explain the dismissal of Jusuf Kalla as Industry and Trade minister and Laksamana Sukardi as Investment Minister in April, was because he had no evidence of wrongdoing.

The DPR summoned Mr Abdurrahman to find out why he had given two different reasons for the sackings. The President had first said the two were sacked because they had been unable to work with other ministers, but later told parliament leaders that both men were corrupt. MPs then accused the President of slander, saying that the two had yet to be proven guilty. By denying parliament the right to question him the President had "opened a new battleground", the paper said.

In a speech read out by State Secretary Johan Effendi in parliament, the President's view was that the lower house had no right to question him under the constitution as he is not accountable to the DPR. But the MPs argued that the legal basis for their move was a law passed in 1999, which stipulated that the DPR had the right to summon the president to account for policies.