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Wahid's Brother Urges Him To Step Aside As Protests Continue
JAKARTA, Feb 12 (News Agencies) - Protests in support of Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid continued in his political stronghold of East Java Monday as his own brother called on him to step aside and grant further powers to his vice president.
"In such a heated political climate, one must give way and compromise," Salahuddin Wahid told the Jakarta Post. Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri "should be given broader authority."
But the brother, a deputy chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Muslim organization which Wahid once headed, said any decision to delegate more authority to Megawati must be constitutional and worked out by the two leaders.
"If necessary, the next annual session of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) could issue a decision for the delegation of power," he said.
Megawati, who's Indonesian Democracy Party Struggle (PDIP) holds the largest bloc in both houses, has remained silent on the issue.
The MPR is scheduled to convene its annual session in August.
The Supreme Advisory Council (DPA), a presidential advisory body, last week made a similar proposal - step aside but not down.
The DPA suggested Wahid remain head of state while giving Megawati, daughter of the country's founding president Sukarno, full administrative authority.
However, Wahid's biographer, Australian academic Greg Barton, has said Wahid was unlikely to accept the plan.
"I can assure you that any ideas of making him non-active or making his role symbolic, are not going to happen," Barton said.
Opinion polls published Monday in the respected Tempo weekly magazine suggested most Indonesians supported parliament's rebuke of Wahid.
But this did not translate into majority support for impeachment.
A Tempo poll of 516 Jakarta residents found 88% of respondents supported the February 1st censure.
The poll, with a five percent margin of error, found 42% favored a swift reply by Wahid, 30% supported resignation, and 20% favored impeachment.
Respondents to a separate poll by Tempo's website Tempointeraktif were divided on whether Wahid should resign or stay.
Of 1,251 respondents, 49.7% said they would accept an apology instead of resignation, while 47.9% would not.
In a separate Tempointeraktif poll of 1,106 people, 37.3% advocated that Wahid resign while 34.9% favored the dissolution of the opposition party Golkar.
Meanwhile, thousands of Wahid supporters were back on the streets of his home province East Java.
A rally by some 6,000 supporters resulted in stone throwing at a local government office and the trashing of lamps and flowerpots, office spokesman Hendra Mardiansyah said.
Tuban lies 85 kilometers (52 miles) northwest of the provincial capital Surabaya.
Thousands of Wahid supporters rallied in convoys of motorbikes and trucks in the royal Javanese court city of Yogyakarta.
In Jakarta, hundreds of pro-Wahid high school students gathered at the national parliament building, while outside Megawati's office, 50 protestors denounced Wahid as "the new corruptor".
They urged him to stand aside.
The lower house of parliament censured Wahid over his alleged role in the embezzlement of $3.9 million in state funds, and for inconsistent accounting of a donation from the Sultan of Brunei.
Wahid has declared his innocence in both scandals and vowed to serve out the rest of his term until 2004.
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