JAKARTA (Islamweb & Agencies) - Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid was kicked out of office on Monday and his deputy Megawati Sukarnoputri sworn in after lawmakers finally lost patience with what is dubbed in the press as his erratic rule. (Read map caption below)
The decision by the country's top legislature came after it rejected Wahid's declaration of a state of emergency earlier in the day and the half-blind cleric refused to stand down just 21 months into his five-year term.
``(The MPR) states that Abdurrahman Wahid is removed from the presidency before his term ends because he clearly violated the state guidelines ... and therefore Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri is appointed as the president of the republic of Indonesia,'' assembly speaker Amien Rais said.
She was sworn in moments later, vowing to do her best for the country.
The big question mark remained whether Wahid, the country's first democratically elected president, would go quietly or would have to be forced from the presidential palace.
A confidant and adviser to Wahid said he sadly accepted the inevitable -- that he had been dumped as president -- but was in a state of shock.
Wahid had long refused to co-operate with the top People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) and efforts to call him to appear to account for his rule.
Wahid, 60, led the country's largest Muslim movement, the Nadhatul Ulama, for 15 years before rising to power in 1999. The NU, said to number 40 million members, also has a large number of fanatical Wahid supporters.
With several hundred supporters rallying outside the presidential palace, a spokesman for the embattled Muslim cleric earlier likened his stand to a jihad, or Islamic holy war, to save the world's fourth most populous nation from collapse.
But the capital Jakarta, where security forces guarded parliament and other potential flashpoints, was calm -- as was Wahid's East Java stronghold, home to diehard supporters who have pledged to lay down their lives for him.
Indonesia has been plagued by heightened separatist, ethnic and communal violence since the fall of former president Suharto. Bombs rocked two Jakarta churches on Sunday, injuring at least 64 people.Wahid has been blamed for failing to solve many of the social and economic problems that beset the country but it remains to be seen whether the popular Megawati, daughter of founding president Sukarno, will have the ability and strength to pull the country out of chaos.
She heads the country's largest political party, the Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDI-P) and has tried to stay above the political fray, refraining from public comment as the crisis unfolded.
But her characteristic silence has led to questions over what her policies are for rescuing the country.
Wahid meanwhile remained holed up in the elegant but heavily protected and barricaded presidential palace in central Jakarta after his state of emergency decree fell flat.
Generals, ministers, judges and legislators rejected the decree and brushed aside his efforts to dissolve parliament and call fresh elections, leaving Wahid isolated.
Assembly speaker Amien Rais, who engineered Wahid's rise to power in 1999 after Megawati's party emerged from elections as the biggest in parliament, spearheaded the drive to oust him.
``The president's move is a very serious violation of the constitution,'' Rais said. ``He must not only be accountable to the assembly but also to the entire Indonesian people.''
Wahid had insisted the impeachment hearing was illegal and that he still had widespread popular support. Assembly speaker Amien Rais, who engineered Wahid's rise to power in 1999 after Megawati's party emerged from elections as the biggest in parliament, spearheaded the drive to oust him.
``The president's move is a very serious violation of the constitution,'' Rais said. ``He must not only be accountable to the assembly but also to the entire Indonesian people.''
Wahid had insisted the impeachment hearing was illegal and that he still had widespread popular support.
MAP CAPTION:
Spread across an archipelago of thousands of islands between Asia and Australia, Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population. Ethnically it is highly diverse, with more than 300 local languages. The people range from stone-age hunter-gatherers to a modern urban elite. Indonesia has seen unprecedented turmoil over the past four years, facing first the Asian financial crisis, then the fall of President Suharto after 32 years in office, the first free elections since the 1960s, the loss of East Timor, independence demands from restive provinces, bloody inter-ethnic and religious conflict and unending corruption scandals. (BBC-Countries Profile).