While Megawaits

If you happen to be driving into Jakarta on the Jagorawi highway, keep your eyes open for a shiny blue Volkswagen Beetle bearing the license plate M3GA: the carefully coiffed matron behind the wheel, some say, represents Indonesia's only realistic hope of avoiding a dizzying plunge into economic and social chaos. The license plate and the four police outriders are a giveaway that the car's occupant is Indonesia's Vice President, Megawati Sukarnoputri. But ignore those and she could easily be mistaken for a middle-class housewife, out for a spin, seemingly without a care in the world.

Megawati's greatest...