Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid, fighting for his political life, yesterday rejected a parliamentary censure over two financial scandals but for the first time apologized for any "inappropriate behavior."
Initial reaction from legislators was split, but several said the eccentric Muslim cleric had not done enough to prevent a second censure in April and one more step towards impeachment.
His apology won about the only applause from legislators who listened to most of the one hour speech -- read for the near blind Wahid by his justice minister -- in stony silence as he poured scorn on last month's formal rebuke.
There were no signs of the feared protests in the capital by pro or anti-Wahid supporters as the reply was delivered. Security forces have mobilized 15,000 personnel to guard against violence.
"I don't accept the memorandum [censure]," said Wahid, who has repeatedly insisted that he is innocent of wrongdoing.
Wahid said the accusations were "baseless" and that he considered the parliamentary committee which had investigated his role in the US$6.1 million scandals as illegitimate.
"It is hard not to see the censure as the result of a dislike of the president or aimed at toppling the president ... the censure does not stand on the principle of justice."
The Muslim cleric occasionally dipped into the Koran, quoting one verse which was clearly directed at his accusers: "Torture is created for those who lie."
But he did, for the first time, make an effort to appear contrite and called for an end to the political conflict which has kept the world's largest Muslim country locked in prolonged crisis.
"At this moment, I personally ask for the forgiveness from parliament and the people of Indonesia for any inappropriate behavior," he said. He did not elaborate.
The censure is the most serious threat so far to the country's first democratically elected president whose stumbling 17-month rule has failed to pull Indonesia out of three years of economic and political crisis.
If he fails to win over a hostile parliament -- and analysts expect him to fail -- the eccentric leader will likely find himself on the road towards impeachment, which many fear could drag the economically ruined nation back into mass violence.
"It was definitely unsatisfactory. It only made clear the president's other weaknesses," Slamet Effendy Yusuf, Golkar's deputy chairman and a legislator, told reporters after Wahid delivered his response to the censure.
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