Jakarta – Indonesia's parliament has sent a written warning to President Abdurrahman Wahid over his sacking of the national police chief and demanded he seek the house's approval for the move, local media reported Friday.

"The working body of the DPR [lower house of parliament] agreed to send a letter to the president to ask him to follow the procedure for dismissing [police chief] Bimantoro and appointing a replacement," the Media Indonesia daily quoted DPR speaker Akbar Tanjung as saying.

Wahid dismissed Bimantoro in a presidential decree issued last Saturday, a month after demanding the police chief's resignation and suspending him when he refused.

The move further incensed an already hostile parliament, as it contravened an upper house (MPR) law requiring the legislature's prior approval for appointing and dismissing the police chief. "As well as asking the president to obey the MPR decree, we the leaders of the DPR also warned the president against violating that decree again..." Tanjung said.

Wahid's dismissal of former police chief Rusdiharjo and appointment of Bimantoro late last year were also done without consulting parliament. A spokesman for Wahid, Andi Adhie Massardi, told AFP Friday he did not know whether the president had received the letter yet.

The parliament was preparing to decide whether to impeach Wahid in a special hearing set to start on August 1.

The virtually blind Muslim preacher has had an erratic and tumultuous 20 months rule since becoming Indonesia's first democratically elected president, and in recent months has alienated most of his earlier allies.

The parliament, flexing its muscles after decades as a rubber stamp body under former president Suharto, has seized on two financial scandals in which Wahid was implicated – though cleared by the Attorney General – as a basis for holding impeachment proceedings.

The police force meanwhile continues to see Bimantoro as the chief, the force's national spokesman Didi Widayadi said. "Bimantoro remains the chief of police until the process for replacing him has been carried out in accordance with the rules," he told AFP. "Otherwise there will be a vacuum in the leadership, which we want to avoid." The police have submitted to Wahid a list of six candidates to replace Bimantoro, Widayadi said.

The man Wahid appointed as deputy police chief to act in Bimantoro's place, Chaeruddin Ismael, was included in the list, Widayadi added. "We're still waiting for the parliament to approve Bimantoro's dismissal and his replacement, in accordance with the set process," the spokesman said.