A president-in-waiting

A president-in-waiting

Megawati Soekarnoputri is looking more and more like the
president-in-waiting today than she ever has before, since
becoming vice president in October 1999. Under the nation's laws,
the vice president will step into the number one job if something
happens to the serving president. With President Abdurrahman
Wahid facing mounting pressure to go one way or the other, many
people here and abroad are already analyzing the prospect of
Megawati becoming Indonesia's next ruler.

She has certainly been getting a lot of support where it
counts most, including from her former detractors, who in 1999
conspired to deprive her of the presidency. The strongest message
of support came on Friday when leaders of all major political
parties met in Jakarta's Al Azhar grand mosque to discuss the
likelihood of her ascendancy to power in the not too distant
future.

"The people of this nation should prepare themselves to face
another change of national leadership," People's Consultative
Assembly chairman Amien Rais said after the meeting, which was
also attended by leaders of Megawati's own Indonesian Democratic
Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan), Golkar, the United
Development Party (PPP), the Justice Party (PK), the Crescent
Star Party (PBB) and Amien's own National Mandate Party (PAN).

Amien, as we may recall, led the campaign in 1999 that
prevented Megawati from becoming the president, despite having
won the general election with 35 percent of the vote, and secured
the election of Abdurrahman, whose own National Awakening Party
(PKB) only won 11 percent of votes in the elections.

The chief objection to Megawati becoming president at the time
was because they argued that Indonesia was not ready for a female
president. Things have obviously changed a lot since then for
Amien and his friends, who are now leading the campaign to oust
Gus Dur, to endorse her presidency today.

More important to the question of her likely ascension to
power is her own position. For months, many people, even those
from within her own PDI Perjuangan, have had to second-guess her
position or intentions with regard to the presidency.

She, for example, allowed PDI Perjuangan to take the lead in
the House of Representatives inquiry into allegations of
impropriety by Gus Dur. But she was also the one who restrained
the party, and hence the House where hers is the largest faction,
from being too severe on the President.

She played an active behind-the-scenes role in ensuring that
the memorandum issued by the House last month was decisive in
reproaching the President but, at the same time, not too
aggressive, allowing him some leeway to respond with dignity.
Other factions, and some leading members of her PDI Perjuangan,
had wanted to be harsher on the President.

A woman of few words, Megawati has had the unenviable task of
threading between her duty of remaining loyal to President
Abdurrahman, and her obligations as chairwoman of the country's
largest political party. She continued to play second fiddle and
never once publicly uttered contemptuous statements against him,
even while the latter was struggling for political survival.

A decisive moment arrived last week when Megawati publicly
distanced herself from the embattled Abdurrahman in a statement
attributed to her by an executive of Muhammadiyah. The statement
was circumspect, stating that, in her capacity as PDI Perjuangan
chairwoman, neither she nor her party had supported Abdurrahman
as president, but that as vice president, she was obliged to
remain loyal to the elected president.

This statement was also the first clearest sign from Megawati
that she is now ready to abandon President Abdurrahman. Other
political leaders, including Amien Rais, took this as a sign that
she was ready to assume the presidency.

The two most frequently asked questions about Megawati's
presidential adequacy had been whether she was ready for it, and
whether she had the capacity undertake the role. At least, the
first question has now been settled, but the second is something
that the nation will have to wait and see.

The message that Megawati conveyed to President Abdurrahman
last week was that he could no longer take her loyalty and
support for granted the way he has being doing these last few
weeks. Because his own PKB has little support beyond its home
base in East Java, Megawati's support, and automatically that of
her PDI Perjuangan, is crucial if he is to have any chance of
surviving the political storm at all.

Gus Dur's fate is very much in the hands of Megawati. The next
few days or weeks will be a very crucial period for her as much
as it is for him. By whatever befalls him, she will be affected.

Yet, the ball is very much in her court now. How she uses this
power will be decisive in determining the fate of this country
and its people. This is a momentous time for her to show
"states(wo)manship" and wisdom. How she uses this power will also
determine what kind of president she will be should she move into
the palace.