She may have a Brahman's sense of entitlement, but she is also powered by a slow-burning rage against Suharto's bullying--of herself, her family and the entire nation. On a flight to a campaign stop in Sumatra last month, Noviantika Nasution, a member of PDI-P's central committee, began talking about political repression under Suharto's rule. Megawati turned away to look out of the plane window, but, Nasution recalls, her words were clear: "I swear, there will never be anything like that again in Indonesia. Never."

What Indonesia would be like under her leadership is unclear. When asked about her vision for the future, she replies mostly in vague terms about the people regaining their dignity. "With so much heterogeneous support, it has been wise of her to remain fuzzy about issues," explains Sarwono.

In a country where the political balance swings not between conservatives and liberals but between stability and chaos, Megawati is in fact a cautious reformer. She has come out against the August independence referendum for East Timor, which she fears could encourage secession movements elsewhere in Indonesia. In an interview she said: "I don't like radical change--that creates problems." Although she insists Suharto and his children should be investigated for ill-gotten gains and dismisses Habibie as "an extension of Suharto," she knows how incendiary the message of revenge can be in her country: 500,000 died in the aftermath of her father's removal.

Should her party do well enough in the elections that she eventually becomes president, her most pressing task will be to fix the economy. Megawati says she favors an open, market economy with a reliable system of justice. "I emphasize the legal system," she has said. "What concerns investors is the lack of legal certainty." And support from investors, especially foreign ones, will be crucial in the struggle to restore confidence in the battered economy. One friend in high places is U.S. President Bill Clinton, whom she first met on a tour of rice-growing Arkansas in the mid-'80s. The two seemed to detect shared political aspirations and kept in touch. Megawati was an official guest at Clinton's 1993 inauguration. At home she has reached out to the relatively wealthy Chinese community: in a key meeting in February with a large group of ethnic Chinese businessmen, she won over her listeners by saying, "I was heavily discriminated against, you say you are heavily discriminated against--we recognize each other."

Megawati's political success will depend largely on the people she chooses to advise her. While an élite team of technocrats fills her inner court, a host of opportunists and sycophants are fluttering closer as her chances of victory increase. There is concern that her husband's businessmen friends might try to influence her. There is also a brewing controversy over the allegedly large number of Christians selected as candidates for her party, an issue Muslim groups have already begun to exploit in order to weaken her appeal. But she still commands loyalty from those who hope to move beyond the religious-secular divide and the other internal conflicts that threaten Indonesia. "I believe in her," says adviser Theo Syafie, a former commandant of the Armed Forces Staff College in Bandung. "She carries her father's faith in a nation-state that should never allow primordial sentiments based on religion or ethnicity to pull it apart."

Indonesians are expecting nothing short of a miracle from the next government. With Megawati viewed by many as a savior, adviser Laksamana warns that "expectation levels are high and the honeymoon period will be short." The euphoria of the election campaign could quickly evaporate as hard issues like unemployment, bank rescues and regional autonomy demands flare up. The next president is sure to be challenged from every side.

The housewife who would be queen feels at home in circumspection--a Javanese trait she shares with Suharto. "For me, silence is a political act," she says. But the time to get vocal is approaching. The martyr strategy may have brought her to the threshold of power, but Megawati will need to find her own political voice if she wants to return to the palace where, after three decades, she still feels she belongs.

With reporting by David Liebhold and Zamira Loebis/Bangkok

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