She drew close to the bed in which her father, Indonesia's founding President Sukarno, lay dying. "Don't speak of my suffering and illness to the people," he told her. "Let me be sacrificed, if unity in Indonesia is achieved ... Let my suffering become a witness that even the power of the President has its limits. Lasting power must be held by the people, and only God Almighty is omnipotent." That was in 1970, but the words are still fresh in the mind of Megawati Sukarnoputri.

As Indonesia prepares for a general election next May, Megawati may soon be in a position to apply the democratic principles that Sukarno espoused at the end. His eldest daughter is riding high on a tide of public disgust over the corrupt, self-serving and tyrannical regime of former President Suharto, who held power from 1967 until he was pushed from office last May. Megawati's detractors like to portray her as a simple housewife, but she is in fact one of the few politicians in Jakarta untainted by links to the old regime. And she enjoys a cult-like following among tens of millions of voters, partly because of her ancestry. As Indonesia's economic depression intensifies, Megawati's supporters say she is the one figure who can unite the country and stop the drift toward chaos and disintegration.

The world must hope they are right, because Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) expects to win at least 40% of the vote. With the backing of Muslim leader Abdurrahman Wahid and other prominent figures, Megawati is now the odds-on favorite in the December 1999 presidential race. Support for the ruling Golkar party is plummeting. More than 80 political parties have been formed since Suharto resigned in disgrace, but most are struggling to find even modest support from the electorate. "The only party that is ready to compete against Golkar is the PDI under Megawati," says Cornelius Lay, a political scientist at Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada University.

During the last years of Suharto's reign, Megawati became a symbol of suffering, resistance and hope. As her support grew, Suharto used his near-absolute power to engineer Megawati's removal as PDI chairman in mid-1996. The government declared former chairman Surjadi to be the party's rightful leader, effectively excluding Megawati from formal politics. The following month police forcibly evicted her supporters from the party's national headquarters, sparking what was then Jakarta's worst rioting in a decade. "We were confronted by a psychopathic and barbaric regime," says PDI treasurer Laksamana Sukardi. "Had she not been the daughter of Sukarno, she would have been crushed completely, maybe killed."

Cast out of her comfortable seat in Suharto's ceremonial three-party parliament, Megawati suddenly found herself on Indonesia's dissident fringe. Raised in the presidential palace and steeped in the status-obsessed culture of Java, she initially felt uncomfortable with the long-haired, poorly dressed activists who had become her new allies. "Three or four years ago, 'Mega' was a real President's daughter--very upper-class," says Lay. "She has changed a lot."

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