Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Almost three years after he was impeached by parliament, Indonesia's nearly blind and erratic former president, Abdurrahman Wahid, insists he still has a shot at the presidency.
Known in Indonesia as the "drunken master" because of his ability to regularly confuse his opponents, Mr Wahid was yesterday adamant he will run as the presidential candidate for his PKB party. This is despite a ruling from the Indonesian Elections Commission (KPU) prohibiting physically or mentally disabled people from running for the presidency.
"I will keep going forward I won't care about the KPU," he said after a meeting of senior clerics which endorsed his run for the presidency.
Polls indicate the man known as Gus Dur would easily be knocked out in the first of Indonesia's two rounds of first direct presidential elections.
Some analysts suspect Mr Wahid's talk of running for president masks a desire for the vice-presidential post – securing a ticket with one of the stronger presidential candidates.
"He wants an alliance with Wiranto but perhaps as a vice-presidential candidate," Daniel Sparringa, a political analyst from East Java's Airlangga University, said. Mr Sparingga said if General Wiranto, the Golkar party presidential candidate, offered him the vice-presidential seat, Mr Wahid would offer to bring PKB supporters with him.
Analysts say that Indonesia's presidential election, to be decided in two rounds in July and September, will be a tight contest between General Wiranto, and the popular former security minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Incumbent Megawati Sukarnoputri is not expected to last beyond the first round in July.
Jeffrey Winters, a visiting US-based Indonesia specialist, said that if Mr Wahid were selected as General Wiranto's running mate it could be a good balance of the secular politicians with support from the moderate Muslims.
More importantly, it would mean that General Wiranto would not need to court more radical Muslim groups such as the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) which has a more conservative agenda than the PKB.
General Wiranto is also close to the PKS, a minor party, whose support has jumped dramatically from less than 2 per cent in 1999, to more than 7 per cent this year.
But if General Wiranto invited PKS into his coalition, he would probably need to offer them key cabinet posts and possibly be forced to implement the demand for Sharia or Islamic law.
Given that Mr Wahid is the only president to have visited Australia and his close ties to Australians, he could make international relations far smoother for General Wiranto, who has been indicted by UN prosecutors over his role in violence in the lead-up to East Timor's independence.
Mr Wahid sacked General Wiranto from his post as Defence Minister and Armed Forces Commander in 2000, because of his record in East Timor.
"What Wahid wants is just the most seats in parliament, he has no preference for one party or the other," Harold Crouch, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, said.
Whatever Mr Wahid's confusing game-plan, analysts agree the "drunken master" is intent on playing a key role determining the make-up of Indonesia's next cabinet. Mr Wahid, Indonesia's first democratically elected president and probably its most unpredictable, was impeached over allegations of embezzlement.