There are a growing number of students on the streets of Jakarta who are hoping to do to Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid what was done last month to Philippine President Joseph Estrada: depose him through the deployment of people power.
The parliamentary procedures by which Wahid could be impeached are convoluted and protracted. They were not laid down in the 1945 Constitution. So the impatient students, fed up with Wahid's lackluster leadership of the crisis-stricken nation, hope to duplicate in Jakarta what happened recently in Manila.
They would like to achieve Wahid's removal quickly through people power so that the current crisis, brought about by corruption allegations against the president, is not drawn-out. It could take Parliament at least four months, and probably much longer, to achieve Wahid's removal through impeachment.