Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Jakarta – When he took office in October 1999, President Abdurrahman Wahid of Indonesia described his relationship with Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri as like an "older brother and younger sister." They squabbled. He playfully taunted her. And they patched up their differences.

But in recent months, the sibling rivalry has grown increasingly bitter. He has largely reneged on a pledge to give her more responsibility for day-to-day government operations. He has joked about her relationship with her husband, suggesting to large groups of visitors that she was having extra-marital affairs. And, in the past week, political sources said he had threatened to open an investigation into what he alleged were corrupt business dealings by her family.

On Thursday, Mrs. Megawati fired back with a potentially debilitating blow. She authorized her political party, which has the largest number of seats in Parliament, to vote for the censure of Mr. Wahid for his alleged involvement in two corruption scandals. The humiliating rebuke has initiated a months-long process that could culminate in a vote to remove him by the country's top legislative body.

Although Mr. Wahid insisted Friday that he would not resign and that he did nothing wrong, politicians and analysts said his survival now depended largely on his vice president and her party, whose support is essential for him to fend off calls for an impeachment from other parliamentary factions.

"The presidency is in her hands," said Andi Mallarangeng, a political analyst in Jakarta. "She has the power now."

Mrs. Megawati, who lost the presidency to the politically wily Mr. Wahid even though her party received far more votes than Mr. Wahid's in the elections 15 months ago, has said little about the political crisis in public. She has not called for Mr. Wahid to step down or indicated her desire to replace him.

But in private, people close to Mrs. Megawati say she is increasingly convinced that Mr. Wahid should leave office. What she is undecided about, however, is how that should occur.

On Thursday, she stopped short of calling for an emergency session of the nation's top legislative body, the People's Consultative Assembly, to begin immediate impeachment proceedings, favoring instead a drawn-out process that gives Mr. Wahid 90 days to respond to Parliament and an additional month for a second response before the assembly is convened.

Several of the president's opponents have urged Mrs. Megawati to support an emergency session, arguing that the country, which is struggling with a raft of economic and social problems, can ill afford months of political gridlock.

Mr. Wahid's opponents also have voiced concern that he might try to dissolve Parliament and use the armed forces to prevent his removal.

Earlier this week, Mr. Wahid urged army commanders to declare a military state of emergency, an order that the commanders refused, according to two high-level political sources.

He also has indicated a desire to "freeze" Parliament, according to a report of the president's comments at a meeting of Islamic academics on Sunday that was carried by the government-run Antara news service. Antara later withdrew the report after a government official said Mr. Wahid's comments were intended to be "off the record."

In a brief news conference Friday, Mr. Wahid dismissed speculation that he planned to dissolve Parliament and fire army generals who refused his orders, saying his opponents were spreading rumors as part of a "psychological war."

But people close to Mrs. Megawati said Friday that the vice president had become increasingly worried about how the president would react to the political pressure. Still, these sources said, she remains wary of pushing for immediate impeachment proceedings because she fears that if Mr. Wahid is ousted, it would set a precedent for presidential removal that could be used against her.

History also may be playing a role in her thinking. Her father, Sukarno, the first president of Indonesia, was ousted in a military coup in 1965. "She doesn't want to take over by forcing Wahid out," an adviser said. "She does not want to be seen as plotting his downfall. She wants him to fall and then to take over for the good of the nation."

Her party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, controls more 30 percent of the seats in Parliament, while Mr. Wahid's party only has 11 percent. The support of her party along with that of the former governing Golkar party were crucial to Mr. Wahid's ascension to the presidency.

Golkar members also supported the censure. "Wahid has totally misplayed his role with her," said a senior diplomat in Jakarta. "She supported him, but he has humiliated her and raised implicit threats of blackmail." "Now," he added, "she has become the power center, and he has become increasingly weak and unable to govern."

The move to censure Mr. Wahid came after a legislative investigating commission issued a report earlier in the week claiming that Mr. Wahid probably was involved in the theft of $4.1 million from the government's food-distribution agency by people who claimed to be acting on his behalf, including his personal masseur. The report also accused the president of failing to declare a $2 million gift from the sultan of Brunei. Mr. Wahid said Friday that the commission's report was "not based on facts."