With the battered nation's economic situation deteriorating more each day, swift political reform has been identified by the IMF as one of the main keys to restoring investor confidence in the world's fourth most populous nation.

It would be International Monetary Fund Asia-Pacific director Hubert Neiss' first meeting with opposition figures since he started regular visits to Jakarta for negotiations on help for its crippled economy. However even Indonesia's chief economics minister Ginandjar Kartasasmita, regarded as a liberal reformer in new president Jusuf Habibie's cabinet, believes organising elections may take more than one year.

Ginandjar told Reuters Television in an interview on Wednesday that it was speculative to give a timetable for political reform, but given the legislation and organisation needed to prepare fornational polls, "you see that we need several months, maybe more than a year, to do all these things." He said the nation's top constitutional body, the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), would have to meet to decide an election date. The MPR usually meets once every five years to elect Indonesia's president. In spite of widely-praised moves by Habibie's government to root out corruption and cronyism, a lengthy delay in calling elections will anger opposition figures who want thorough political reform as soon as possible.

The IMF has suspended disbursements of a $10-billion balance-of-payments loan, the central plank of a $41.2-billion rescue package crucial to getting the beleaguered economy back on its feet. Neiss said he would present a report to the IMF's executive board in Washington on Monday after his four-day visit to Jakarta, and a decision would then be made on whether to resume payments."Hopefully he can make a thorough assessment of our current situation and hopefully we can get across themessage that we are moving in the right direction in economic reform as well as political reform," Ginandjar said in the interview.

Further signs of decay in the country's diseased banking sector underlined the urgency of agreement -- Moody's Investor Services said the banking system was "broadly insolvent" and the central bank was forced to offer liquidity help to the country's biggest private bank, Bank Central Asia, which is linked to Suharto's family and friends. Neiss told reporters political stability was crucial to Indonesia's economic recovery.

"I'm here to discuss the economic side of things, but it's clear that political stability is extremely important for economic progress," he said. Neiss plans meetings with opposition figureheads Amien Rais and Megawati Sukarnoputri on Thursday and Mucthar Pakpahan, head of the unrecognised Indonesian Labour Welfare Union (SBSI), on Friday.

Neiss also met president Jusuf Habibie shortly on Thursday. Pakpahan and another opposition leader on Tuesday werethe first political prisoners released since Suharto's ouster and a major newspaper reported on Thursday five more prisoners may be released today. At a news conference, Pakpahan said the IMF's loan should be paid in a way that bypassed the government. "If they give it to the government, they will be giving it to the family of Habibie," he said. "I don't trust him. He is corrupt."