Keith B. Richburg – President Suharto gained a new distinction last week: With the fall of strongman Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, the Indonesian president's 30 years in power now rank him second in tenure, just behind Cuba's Fidel Castro, among the world's leaders. And like his counterparts elsewhere, Suharto is discovering that in politics, as in love, familiarity can breed frustration and discontent.

There are no indications that Suharto, 75, is facing anything like a Mobutu-style exit from the political scene. There are no rebels surrounding the capital and no obvious successors waiting in the wings. The Indonesian military backs Suharto, while the system he created rigidly constrains most forms of political expression. And unlike Mobutu, who bankrupted his mineral-rich African nation, Suharto has presided over a prolonged period of impressive economic growth – an average of 7 percent a year – and has reduced poverty dramatically in the world's fifth-most-populous nation.

"Mobutu would still happily be president of Zaire if he had a 7 percent growth rate and $40 billion worth of investment," said a Western diplomat who asked not to be quoted by name. "We are not in a revolutionary situation."

But the signs of mounting popular disaffection are palpable, from the thick-carpeted boardrooms along Jakarta's high-rise commercial strips to the slums south and east of the city, where unemployed young men in T-shirts and headbands challenge police lines with stones and molotov cocktails. Everyone, it seems, is clamoring for change – but a change to what, no one is quite sure.

"I think this Suharto government is suffering from regime fatigue," said Susanto Pudjomartono, chief editor of the English-language daily newspaper the Jakarta Post. "If a regime has ruled for 30 years, it has lost its touch."

Campaigning for the May 29 elections for Indonesia's rubber-stamp parliament – normally a lackluster contest among three government-sanctioned parties – has sparked rioting this year in Jakarta and across central Java. Tension also flared into violence earlier this year between Indonesia's majority Muslim population and the economically privileged ethnic Chinese minority.

Newspapers and magazines, normally restrained in their coverage of politics, lately have shown more bite, even treading into sensitive areas such as the business dealings of the Suharto children. And members of Jakarta's normally conservative middle-class elite have become surprisingly candid in their criticism of Suharto – and in their suggestions that it is time for him to leave.

Suharto's regime also is facing criticism from the United States, which has moved human rights concerns to the forefront of its agenda with this key regional ally long viewed as a linchpin of stability in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. In congressional testimony earlier this month, Aurelia Brazeal, the deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said, "Our relationship with Indonesia, as important as it is, will not reach its full potential until there is improvement in that country's human rights performance." She cited labor rights, press freedom and controls on politics as areas of U.S. concern.

While political life in Indonesia remains strictly and stubbornly controlled from the top, there is evidence of a more subtle, but potentially far-reaching "revolution" of sorts stirring beneath the surface.

Some 20 million Indonesians, or 10 percent of the population, are estimated to have access to satellite television, opening a world of information to them outside the government's control, such as programs on the Cable News Network. Satellite dishes and receivers cost as little as $200. The Internet has only about 20,000 users now, but usage is becoming more widespread in the cities, providing another means of access to censored material. There is also an impressive array of independent, grass-roots organizations – legal aid societies, human rights groups and environmental organizations.

Like South Korea and Taiwan, two other military-led regimes that shifted peacefully to democracy in recent years, Indonesia "has the same pattern of extended economic growth creating social change, and a middle class no longer willing to be denied a place in the political system," said the Western diplomat.

Indonesians want to avoid a violent upheaval like the one over leadership succession three decades ago. The Indonesian Communist Party, or PKI, launched a coup attempt by assassinating top army generals, and the military seized power and embarked on a ruthless campaign of bloodletting against suspected leftists.

"Everyone agrees that for the government not to respond to the pressures will be dangerous," said political scientist Dewi Fortuna Anwar of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences. "But how far to respond is the question. . . . [There] is a lot of disagreement about how fast to do it, and to what degree."

Said Pudjomartono, the Jakarta Post editor, "We lack the courage to topple Suharto."

The more likely scenario is gradual change from within the system, led by an accepted, moderate figure of the establishment. To many, Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of Indonesia's first president, Sukarno, offers the best hope. Sukarnoputri is anything but radical. She stays within the confined legal boundaries. When the government orchestrated her removal as head of the small Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), she challenged it not in the streets but in the courts. Since being dumped as party leader, she is banned from running in the current elections. She announced that she would refrain from voting, but she stopped short of calling for an election boycott, because that would have been illegal.

"Megawati is not anti-establishment," said Subagio Anam, a businessman and aide to the opposition leader. "She is part of the establishment. . . . If you go outside the system, you will be totally crushed."

With Sukarnoputri, by far the most popular opposition leader, effectively banned from politics, the upcoming election holds little suspense. The ruling Golkar party and its two small, legally authorized rivals have identical platforms, all the candidates have been vetted and approved by the military, and all support the appointment of Suharto for another five-year presidential term beginning next year.

So tightly is the system controlled that Haji Harmoko, the Golkar chairman who is also information minister, predicted that his party will win 70.02 percent of the vote. Few expect him to be far off the mark.

The only question now is whether the United Development Party will increase its share of the vote from the 17 percent it won five years ago, and eclipse the PDI as Golkar's main rival. Since Sukarnoputri's ouster from the PDI, the party has lost much of its support, and United Development – a Muslim-oriented party – has emerged as the only effective voice for the regime's opponents.

Most of the recent violence, including rioting Friday night in Jakarta, has been by young United Development supporters who have refused to listen to a call for a ban on all outdoor rallies.

The election is for 425 seats of a 500-member parliament, with the remaining 75 seats reserved for the military. This parliament then forms one-half of the 1,000-member assembly that names the president. The other half is appointed. The appointed membership guarantees that Suharto will be chosen for a new term, regardless of whether either of the two smaller parties manages to dent the Golkar majority.

Any change from within largely depends on Suharto. But few believe he has plans to step aside. Suharto has even hinted that he may be trying to perpetuate his stay in power through his daughter, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana. She has been mentioned as a possible vice president to Suharto, who has named a different one for each of his six terms. Anam, Sukarnoputri's aide, attributed the president's staying power to what he calls "the four M's."

"He has money. He has might – he has the army. He has the mass media. And the fourth M, he has the power to manipulate," Anam said. "As long as the M's are there, there's no way to change through democratic means."