Camelia Pasandaran, Farouk Arnaz & Zaky Pawas – The first anniversary of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono starting his second term passed relatively peacefully on Wednesday with the feared massive protests in the capital and other cities failing to materialize.

But some focused demonstrations in Jakarta – including around the State Palace – erupted into stone-throwing, tear gas and gunfire.

"Everything was under control nationwide," National Police spokesman Comr. Marwoto Soeto told a press conference. National Police data showed that demonstrators rallied in Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Papua.

In front of the State Palace, a few hundred protesters, mostly students, held a rowdy demonstration that led to a scuffle with the security force tightly guarding the area.

The clash erupted after protesters hurled stones and sticks toward the police who answered with tear gas. Marwoto said at least 2,800 policemen, equipped with water cannons and tear gas, were deployed to 19 locations around the palace. Yudhoyono was inside but did not meet with the protesters.

In another clash between hundreds of student protesters and police in the upscale Menteng neighborhood in Central Jakarta, demonstrators burned tires and pictures of the president, and police responded with tear gas and warning shots.

Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Boy Rafli Amar said he believed one of the protesters in Menteng might have been hit in the leg by "a warning shot from a revolver." He defended the officers' actions saying, "the mob became brutal and attacked."

Central Jakarta Police chief Sr. Comr. Hamidin said six people were arrested in the protests. The Jakarta Police deployed about 19,000 personnel citywide.

Clashes were also reported in the West Java capital of Bandung, in East Java's Surabaya and in Makassar, South Sulawesi, as well as a few other cities.

In Makassar, about 1,000 students held separate protests and shut down several main arteries to traffic by burning tires and strewing large stones across roads. The students also vandalized four official state cars and some at the Indonesia Muslim University took a policeman hostage for about 90 minutes.

In Mataram, on Lombok, hundreds of students demonstrated in small groups. But none of the protests were of a threatening scale.

Groups critical of the president and the government, including Petisi 28, had warned of rallies involving tens of thousands of people. Yudhoyono, according to spokesperson Julian Aldrin Pasha, dismissed the rallies as "normal in a democracy era."

Barkah Pattimahu, a researcher from the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI), attributed the low protest attendance to the belief "that the government will not listen to them, so they don't want to waste energy in protesting."

[Additional reporting by Fitri & Rachmat.]