The Indonesian President, Mr Abdurrahman Wahid, may have been hasty in ordering the former army chief Gen Pak Wiranto to resign his ministerial post, Mr Amien Rais, chairman of Indonesia's highest legislative body, said yesterday.
Mr Rais hinted that he would be ready to mediate between Mr Wahid and Gen Wiranto after the former army chief defied the president's order that he step down as co-ordinating minister for political and security affairs.
"Maybe I would say that he [Wahid] was a bit hasty to say something which is shaking Asian politics from far away," Mr Rais said during a visit to Tokyo.
Mr Wahid, who is on a two-week visit overseas, has said Gen Wiranto must step down after being implicated in an official report on last year's atrocities in East Timor.
"I think this was not very rational," Mr Rais said. "Maybe the president should have been patient and make his decision after he comes home."
Gen Wiranto yesterday defied the president's order to step down, but his position looked weak and few expected the showdown to trigger a coup.
The power struggle between the two men is one MrWahid is expected to win, with growing domestic and international support for his efforts to bring the world's fourth most populous country its first real taste of democracy after decades of military-backed autocratic rule.
That international backing was underscored yesterday, when Mr Wahid's government won $4.7 billion in aid from donors to help pull the country out of its worst economic recession in 30 years.
The money, however, came with a clear warning against any attempts to undermine Mr Wahid's democratically-elected government.
"It is very clear that if we came to a situation where these governance, democracy and human rights goals were not present in the government, I don't see how there could be any financial, political or technical support from the international community," said Mr Jean-Michel Severino, World Bank vice-president for East Asia and the Pacific, after the donor meeting.
Gen Wiranto was among six generals implicated this week in an official report into the bloodshed in East Timor after the territory voted to end 23 years of often brutal Indonesian rule.
Pro-Jakarta mobs, with support from the Indonesian military, laid waste to East Timor after the vote result was announced.
Since the downfall of the despotic President Suharto nearly two years ago, the star of the military has waned sharply. It has been blamed for repeated human rights abuses and failing to stop the violence which has ravaged Indonesia since mid-1998.
Financial markets fell again yesterday on fears that the power struggle could spark a coup.
But analysts say the military is too divided to form a cohesive group to fight back against Mr Wahid and that even if it did, the outcome would mean even more calamity.
It would certainly cut Indonesia's foreign aid flows and could well spark civil war in a giant archipelago already boiling with discontent over the economic and political turmoil.
But analysts warned that the president must be wary of further hurting the military.
"For the elite of the military, the fate of Wiranto is very important for them. So from that point of view it's quite clear Wiranto is not going to give up easily," said Mr Umar Juoro, adviser to former president B.J. Habibie.