Christopher Torchia, Jakarta – When traffic lights blink red at big intersections, beggars, vendors and street musicians swarm around cars, insistently tapping on rolled-up windows. Cadgers abound now in Jakarta, the jobless victims of a yearlong economic crisis in Asia that refuses to let up. Most evenings, two dozen hustlers jostle on a curb near a cluster of luxury hotels. A few months ago, just a couple lingered.

This capital of 10 million people, where slums lined with sewage-choked canals nestle near high-walled mansions and gleaming office towers, is beset by uncertainty and worry about social chaos. Some residents fear spreading poverty will trigger more violence like the riots over price increases last month that killed as many as 1,200 people and drove President Suharto from office. Many ethnic Chinese, who were targeted in the mayhem, fled overseas and have not returned.

"There's still food around, but the money is gone," said Jumaedi, a truck driver sitting in a rundown restaurant with a few buddies and eating a rice and egg dish that cost the equivalent of 10 cents. "Politically, we just do not know where to go at present. There is no clear direction," said Harry Tjan of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a private think-tank.

Some foreigners who were evacuated during the riots never came back, and those still in town are edgy. One real estate advertisement in The Jakarta Post, an English-language newspaper, offers a home with a swimming pool in a "riot-free location." "Protect your family and your budget," tempts another ad for an apartment in a complex with security guards.

The military is on alert. Soldiers in berets sometimes lounge on sidewalks outside shopping centers or cruise the streets aboard olive-green trucks. Armored cars park at both ends of the tree-lined lane where Suharto lives, extra security for the authoritarian leader who quit May 21 after 32 years in power. Anger over the vast wealth he and his family amassed is widespread.

Candor in government is a new, refreshing trend. Information Minister Yunus Yosfiah suggested his office be disbanded because it wasted money and, ironically, had only stalled the spread of information. Habibie has pledged general elections next year and freed some political prisoners. He even visited riot-damaged malls to sympathize with bereft shopkeepers, a campaign-style gesture that his aloof predecessor would never have made. Yet political reform is abstract for millions of Indonesians with no jobs and little money.

In Jakarta, teen-age prostitutes now beckon drivers near the city's national monument, a tall spire of marble topped by a gold-leaf sculpture in the shape of a flame. Many bus drivers can't work because there is no cash for imported spare parts. Occupancy in some hotels hovers at a paltry 10 percent, and cranes sit idle on construction sites.

Partly gutted in an electrical fire in November, a shiny, blue-glassed tower in the central bank complex is empty and unrepaired. There are no funds to fix it. Hundreds of buildings damaged in May's rioting remain boarded up, their windows still smashed.

Indonesia may get a lift in July, when the International Monetary Fund is expected to resume disbursing billions of dollars in loans, suspended because of the turmoil last month. But unemployed youths, like one hustler selling a laptop computer, are desperate. He approached a car with his merchandise, possibly a spoil from the looting in May. "Do you want to buy my calculator? It's too big for me," he declared. The delighted driver picked it up for 50,000 rupiah – or $3.30 at the current exchange rate.