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JAKARTA - Indonesia will deploy thousands of police to an anti-graft protest on Wednesday after President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono warned that unnamed forces could hijack the rally to topple him, a spokesman said.
"There will be 10,000 police personnel deployed tomorrow in several spots that will be passed by demonstrators," Jakarta police spokesman Boy Rafli told AFP. Anti-riot police would be among those on hand to suppress any violence.
On the eve of the protest, Yudhoyono appealed for people to demonstrate calmly, saying his government was serious about tackling graft.
"I urge the people to celebrate the world anti-corruption day tomorrow in an orderly way... In the next five years I want the results of combating corruption to be one of the legacies of my administration," he said.
Indonesia's top security chiefs met on Monday to discuss a supposed threat to the country after Yudhoyono told a gathering of his Democratic party that the rally was a front for a "hidden political scenario".
Yudhoyono is under mounting pressure over corruption allegations that have besieged the administration since his landslide election victory in July on the back of promises of good governance and economic growth.
The softly-spoken ex-general has been slow to discipline the officials involved and has seemed out of touch with public anger over the endless stream of corruption scandals.
His taciturn exterior was shaken when he angrily rejected suspicions that money from a 6.7-trillion-rupiah (710-million-dollar) government bailout for a failed bank found its way into his campaign coffers.
Organisers of the anti-graft rally said the president was paranoid and called on him to join them rather than demonising a popular movement for justice.
"Announcing half-baked theories or assumptions confuses the public and reveals the internal self-doubt of a man who should be the bedrock of this nation," The Jakarta Post said in an editorial.
- AFP /ls
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