Jakob Tobing, chairman of the National Elections Committee (PPI), told a special meeting that a number of leaders of political parties contesting the parliamentary election were demanding the delay.

Also attending the meeting were members of election watchdog groups, officials said. They added that most of those lodging protests of electoral irregularities were members of small parties which failed to gain the minimum number of votes to get a seat in parliament.

``In fact we (the PPI) are ready to start with the national vote tabulation steps, though not all of the provincial election commissions have reported their vote counts,'' Tobing said.

``But due to the requests (for the delay) we have agreed to postpone the vote counting nationally until all of theprovincial vote counting is concluded and arrives at the PPI,'' he added.

Tobing said he considered the delay of vote-counting on the national level as the ``best alternative'' in the present circumstances.

Local media quoted political party leaders, especially those of small parties which have no chance to get a seat in parliament, as demanding new voting in several provinces because of the alleged irregularities.

Other election committee officials said many provincial election committees finished their vote counts but failed to submit them to the PPI, citing unsettled debates over alleged irregularities.

US poll monitors said they found no major irregularities in vote-counting in the election, despite the painfully slow tabulation process.

Forty-eight political parties contested the parliamentary election, the first free and democratic polling in Indonesia since 1955. But more than two-thirds of the competing parties gained less than two per cent of the vote, and they now face mandatory extinctionunder a strict electoral system.

With the official count so far reaching 57.7 million votes, or 52 per cent of the total, the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, chaired by Megawati Sukarnoputri, was the front-runner. Her party had 36.59 per cent, followed by the National Awakening Party (PKB) with 18.33.