JAKARTA Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid on Sunday raised the stakes in his increasingly desperate attempts to hang on to power by threatening to declare a civil emergency if Parliament went ahead with efforts to impeach him.

A civil emergency is one step below martial law and would give police wide-ranging powers of search and arrest, and impose a curfew and press censorship though a civil administration would remain in charge.

But it is far from certain that the security forces, which have been increasingly favoring his estranged vice-president, would follow the order.

"President Abdurrahman Wahid sees a civil emergency as an alternative if a special session is implemented," presidential spokesman Adhie Massardi told reporters as quoted by Reuters.

He said that if the session went ahead "the reaction from people would be uncontrollable" but added Wahid was still trying to convince MPs to change their minds.

Parliament meets on Wednesday to decide whether to take its two formal censures of Wahid a step further and call on the top legislature, the People's Consultative Assembly, to convene for impeachment hearings.

MPs, almost united in their criticism of Wahid's stumbling 19-month rule, account for 500 of the 700-seat assembly.

They have already pledged to reject his offer to transfer power to enigmatic deputy, Megawati Sukarnoputri, which he made on Friday in the hope of staving off the impeachment move.

Despite the mounting leadership crisis, which many fear could plunge the nation back into bloody violence, Megawati has refused to be rushed into deciding whether to accept the offer.

She made an unannounced visit to East Java on Sunday to the grave of her father -- Indonesia's founding president Sukarno -- where a local official said she spent 45 minutes in prayer.

If she rejects the offer, the impeachment hearings are a near certainty.

As the crisis over his leadership has deepened, Wahid has become increasingly isolated from the political mainstream.

And the powerful military, trying hard to look neutral, has shown clear signs of siding with Megawati who increasingly appears like a president-in-waiting.

Fears are rising with the political temperature that Indonesia could slide back into the bloody violence that has plagued it since the downfall of long-serving autocrat Suharto three years ago.