Seth Mydans, Jakarta – Too many shopping malls in the city. Too many squatters on the riverbanks. Too many villas on the southern hillsides. Or a curse hovering over the president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

A man emptied his Jakarta house on Friday of mud left by a flood last week, one of many calamities to strike Indonesia in the last two years.

Filthy water still fills much of the city a week after the start of the worst flood in decades, draining slowly away during dry spells, then topped up again by new rain storms. Officials say 80 people have now died, mostly by drowning and electrocution.

And along with the misery of homelessness, power failures and traffic jams, the city is troubled by a babble of theories, recriminations and superstitious whispers about why Indonesia is plagued by natural disasters.

Over the past two years, Indonesia has suffered an encyclopedia of troubles, from the devastating tsunami of December 2004 to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, droughts, bird flu outbreaks, landslides, airline crashes and a vast, bizarre geyser of mud – a constant pounding of catastrophes that has worn down the national psyche and convinced many that something supernatural is going on.

"Since the day he took office there have been unending disasters," said Permadi, a member of Parliament and a mystic, of the president. Like many Indonesians, he uses only one name. Mr. Yudhoyono was born under a bad sign, he said, and nature is demonstrating its anger at him and the nation.

But the flood that at one point inundated up to 70 percent of the city is traceable to more tangible problems, many here say. It exposes the limitations and dangers of Indonesia's aging infrastructure. And it demonstrates the growing pains of a democratic transformation that could produce more responsive governments.

To begin with, this port city of 43 lakes and 13 rivers that lies partly below sea level still relies on flood canals and sluice gates that were built by the Dutch 160 years ago.

The clearing of trees on nearby hillsides has removed a natural check on flooding, while the housing developments that have replaced them have put a further strain on public works.

This uneven development is an example of the central problem of Indonesian infrastructure, said Ramesh Subramaniam, principal economist at the Asian Development Bank in Indonesia. "It is essentially a conflict between private consumption, which is going up, and public investment in infrastructure, which is almost stagnant," he said.

As the economy grows about 6 percent a year, with a proliferation of homes, offices and shopping centers, almost no new roads, bridges, airports, power lines or water systems have been built since the Asian economic crisis a decade ago. More malls, more squatter communities, more hillside villas: all contribute to breakdowns in urban services and to disasters like the flood.

"There is no question that the economy is growing now at a healthy clip," said Douglas E. Ramage, the country representative of the Asia Foundation. "But the growth is going to bump smack up against infrastructure limitations."

Because of complex regulations and legal uncertainties, there has been very little foreign investment in infrastructure in recent years. Two conferences in the past two years that offered nearly 100 projects to foreign investors produced no contracts.

"China has built more roads in the last year than Indonesia in the last 20 years," said Jim Castle, chief executive of CastleAsia, a consultancy and research firm. "I think they have installed more telephones in six months than Indonesia has installed in 10 years."

Attempts to overcome this problem, and to become more responsive to disasters like the flood, have been complicated as Indonesia reconfigures its democratic system. It is dispersing power from the center to local governments and instituting direct elections of government officials.

With weaker central control, different levels of government and different jurisdictions can now find themselves at odds. Trees are cut down and housing developments are built without coordination on Jakarta's outskirts. And when a disaster strikes, the response is often uncoordinated and, as a result, chaotic.

Eventually, though, political analysts say local accountability and direct elections will push officials to be more responsive to the needs of their constituents.

This, too, is expected to be part of the story of the Jakarta flood. This summer, for the first time in its 450-year history, Jakarta will directly elect a governor, and the flood is expected to be a major issue.

"This is as much a governance issue as a natural disaster," Mr. Ramage said. "All over Indonesia, as cities get to elect their mayors and provinces directly elect their heads, we are beginning to see more responsible government."

Responding to the emergency much as they have in the past, incumbent officials were busy this week pointing fingers at one another.

The city's governor, Sutiyoso, blamed deforestation and overbuilding in neighboring areas and a lack of financing from above. Environment Minister Racmat Witoelar blamed officials for issuing improper building permits. The Public Works Ministry blamed people whose land blocks the route of a new flood canal.

The coordinating minister for the people's welfare, Aburizal Bakrie, took himself off the hook, saying news coverage of the flood had been exaggerated. "We see that victims are still laughing," he told a television reporter.

Mr. Sutiyoso has served for a decade as governor without having to worry about votes and has paid little political price for his inaction after a similar major flood in 2002.

It is even possible to imagine that Mr. Permadi, the mystical member of Parliament, is engaging a little more with what is sometimes called the reality-based world.

"From a spiritual perspective," he said, "there are two ways of looking at the flood." One is the bad karma of both national and local leaders. "The other is that it is now rainy season."