Megawati's first task a tricky move for diplomacy

JAKARTA - Indonesia's new President, Megawati Sukarnoputri, started her first full day in office faced with the sensitive task of trying to coax her predecessor and erstwhile friend from the presidential palace.

Abdurrahman Wahid, shocked over his sacking by the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) on Monday for incompetence, has refused to vacate the sprawling colonial-era palace in central Jakarta.

It is hoped he will leave this week but is unlikely to be forcibly evicted, a senior official said yesterday.

Asked by reporters when Wahid would go, Bambang Kesowo, a top aide to Megawati, said: "Probably this week, hopefully. We will try gradually [to get Wahid to leave] as everything cools down. That's more pleasant isn't it?"

Megawati, apparently keen to avoid confrontation and inflame Wahid's millions of followers, has been holding meetings in the vice-presidential office, her former workplace.

Members of the top assembly will decide today who will fill the vice-president's post. The MPR, which dumped Wahid on Monday, had earlier agreed to leave the vice-presidency vacant until the assembly's annual session in November but members changed their minds when Megawati's appointment looked like a foregone conclusion.

Analysts have said the vice-presidency might become the first issue to strike a wedge among the coalition that propelled the leader of the nation's largest party to power.

"Some politicians have become so ambitious and impetuous," said University of Indonesia political analyst Muhammad Budhyatna. "Their mentality, after all, is accumulating power."

Megawati, the daughter of founding President Sukarno, is also expected to name a cabinet within several days to start tackling the political and economic woes that have made Indonesia one of Asia's most unstable and ungovernable states.

Foreign leaders, especially of Jakarta's anxious neighbours, have welcomed Megawati's ascension from Vice-President and also praised the peaceful transition.

Indonesia's 210 million people have also breathed a sigh of relief that the violence that many feared would accompany Wahid's fall 21 chaotic months into his five-year term has failed to erupt.

A question mark hangs over Megawati's abilities and of those who will form her team. Although she is adored by the impoverished masses and her party won the most votes in a 1999 election for Parliament, she is still well short of a majority.

And in the space of four years, Indonesia has gone from being a regional heavyweight and economic success story to the Southeast Asian country analysts fret about most after North Korea.

The Asian economic crisis in late 1997 savaged Indonesia's economy.

Indonesia's financial markets greeted the prospect of Wahid's downfall with glee, and the rupiah and the stock market both staged hefty gains.

But a sustained recovery in both will need a credible economic team and clear policies from a woman more famous for her reticence and silence than her grasp of governance.

She is expected to draft in some respected faces to key economic posts.

- REUTERS

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