Mrs. Megawati became vice president 18 months ago when Mr. Wahid whom she calls brother maneuvered behind her back in an electoral assembly to seize the top position that even he now acknowledges she really deserved. In a general election four months earlier her party had won 33 percent of the vote in a crowded field, far ahead of Mr. Wahid's 10 percent. But most analysts blame her for her defeat in the assembly as much as they credit him. As Mr. Sukarno's daughter, they say, she sat back passively waiting to be anointed in the role she believed was hers by right and destiny. That sense of destiny motivates her supporters as well.
Leadership runs in the family.
Her rise to the top now would close a historical circle. It was former President Suharto who pushed her father from office in 1967, placing him under house arrest, where he died three years later. And it was, in effect, Mr. Suharto who created her as a political force, ousting her roughshod from leadership of an ineffective party in 1996 and making a martyr of her. It is an extraordinary fact of Indonesian political life that her popularity has only swelled since that day despite her determinedly low profile and persistent silences. As Mr. Suharto was driven from power, she went shopping, removing herself from the popular uprising against him.