SINGAPORE -- The threat of impeachment from angry legislators stared Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid grimly in the face on Aug 7., when the 695-member People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) convened in Jakarta to review Indonesia's progress.
Members of the country's highest policymaking chamber were unhappy with his performance over the past 10 months since he assumed leadership of Southeast Asia's largest and most important nation. Not only had the legislators lamented that the 60-year-old Wahid, also popularly known as Gus Dur, failed miserably to improve the depressed economy, triggering off widespread social unrest which could rip apart the fragile unity of Indonesia's 220 million people.
They were also incensed that he had been implicated in corruption, cronyism and nepotism, the very crimes his administration had pledged to eradicate.