JAKARTA Supporters of embattled President Abdurrahman Wahid staged their first show of strength in the streets of the Indonesian capital Tuesday as Wahid said he was pinning his survival hopes on Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri, AFP reported.

Some 300 Wahid supporters, vowing to block Parliament attempts to impeach the president, roared in a motorcycle convoy unhindered by police through the city center.

They are expected to be followed in the coming days by thousands more from Wahid's political stronghold in East Java.

No incidents were reported in Tuesdays parade, which came six days ahead of a Parliament session Monday at which MPs, including from Megawati's party, appear set to start the process of impeachment rolling.

At the presidential palace a senior minister quoted the 60-year-old president as saying he was pinning his hopes on Megwati, the popular daughter of Indonesia's first president Sukarno, to break the dragging political impasse.

"All have pinned their hopes on Mrs. Mega, not only the president. I think the people also have high hopes because it has to be admitted that nowadays Mrs Mega has the most decisive role," Defense Minister Muhammad Mahfud said.

Megawati's Indonesian Democracy Party for Struggle (PDIP) is the largest party in Parliament after winning the most votes in the 1999 elections which followed the fall of authorization former ruler Suharto.

She is rapidly gaining multiparty support to replace Wahid.

The chairman of the Crescent and Star Party (PBB), Yusril Ihza Mahendra, claimed Megawati had said her party would join a second parliamentary censure of Wahid.

The PBB has also agreed to back a second censure, a move that could lead to his impeachment by August.

"We were discussing PBB's support for the second censure memorandum and when I asked (Megawati) about PDIP's stance, Mrs. Megawati said 'It would be like that too'," Mahendra was quoted by the ***Jakarta Post *** as saying.

Speaking after meeting Wahid with top Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Defense Minister Mahfud said Megawati's importance in the political crisis "cannot be denied."

Mahfud added Wahid had no objection to a second censure and saw it as "normal and acceptable," but he wanted to see its contents first.

Wahid has warned he may not be able to control his grass-roots supporters if another memorandum is issued.

Tens of thousands of Wahid supporters from across Java, including diehards who have vowed to fight his opponents to the death, have begun to head for the capital ahead of Monday's Lower House debate.

Mahfud said Wahid had asked him to go to his East Java powerbase on Wednesday to urge his supporters to stay away from Jakarta.

But police, who have said they will allow the supporters into the capital as long as they are not armed, Tuesday were busy setting up "hospitality" tents near entrance points to the city, where they could eat and pray.

Wahid was first censured by the DPR on February 1 after it endorsed a report that implicated him in the two scandals involving some six million dollars of state funds.

The report provided no conclusive evidence and Wahid has denied any wrongdoing.

But Wahid's opponents have blamed him for failing to curb unrest, carry out speedy reforms or rescue the country from its current economic crisis.