Ring in the Old.(Indonesia)

Indonesia's most famous housewife suddenly has a much bigger house. After nearly two years as a silent and often sidelined vice president-- and six months of quietly backing her former boss Abdurrahman Wahid into a corner--Megawati Sukarnoputri now has the keys to the palace where she grew up. She has the presidency she thought was rightfully hers when her party won the most votes in 1999 elections. She has the good will of the international community, many, if not most, of her citizens and a large swath of the political establishment. "The popular mood is that this is a new chance for Indonesia--let's help her out," says legislator Sabam Siagian.

She will need all the help she can get. Not only does Megawati confront the same mountain of challenges that defied the erratic Wahid--a basket-case economy, corrupt and debt-ridden companies and banks, a ballooning budget deficit, ethnic tensions, separatist violence and general lawlessness. But in order to get anything done, she must rely politically upon the two pillars of former dictator Suharto's all- powerful New Order: the Indonesian military and the Golkar party. Some Indonesians fear that Megawati's rise may, in fact, provide the ancient regime its most potent opportunity since the fall of Suharto. "There is already a belief out there that the New Order will be pulling the strings behind the scenes," says political analyst Dewi Fortuna Anwar.

This worry stems partly from Megawati's own political inexperience. She was outmaneuvered by Wahid for the presidency in 1999 because she refused to engage in the kind of political horse trading that is demanded by coalition politics. Last week, after being elevated to the post by a unanimous vote of the People's Consultative Assembly, which earlier had voted Wahid out of office for incompetence, she nearly stumbled again by not quickly sorting out a deal between various factions to appoint a vice president and cabinet. Instead a three-way contest nearly brought in the ambitious Golkar chief Akbar Tandjung as her deputy. In the end the leader of the Muslim coalition in Parliament, Hamzah Haz, won the post--a less threatening, if uninspiring, choice. But Tandjung was not shy about asserting his clout. "My party is strong in the Parliament," he said after the loss to Haz. "We will [keep an eye] on the government, and if they make any mistakes... you know what happened with [Wahid]."

Indeed, Golkar looks to have unusual sway over a Megawati administration--immediately, in terms of demanding important cabinet posts in exchange for losing the vice presidency, and more generally, as the second largest party in Parliament and key swing vote. Its members can do damage to the new president simply by association. "Megawati's basic political capital is for her to remain clean and untainted by corruption, and that goes for her inner circle as well," says her chief adviser, Laksamana Sukardi. If voters see her as compromised by Suharto-style cronyism, their patience will quickly run thin.

A Golkar presence in the new government could have more insidious implications, too. Leaders argue that the party has remade itself from the vehicle used to project Suharto's influence into every village and town of the archipelago--and to siphon off state funds--into a modern, democratic political organization. But most analysts say that individual members have no interest in giving up their old, profitable ways. That means that to pursue reforms, Megawati will be relying upon politicians who have little incentive to reform. Even the party's deputy chairman Marzuki Darusman says, "Golkar hasn't really transformed itself into a 'New Golkar.' The moment it entrenches itself within the government, it may be very difficult to bring about change."

Of course, Megawati partly faces the same problem any new leader would. "It's hard to find clean people in Indonesia after 32 years ...