Susan Sim, Jakarta – Indonesia's two leading presidential candidates – Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri and Mr Abdurrahman Wahid, also known as Gus Dur – continued to confound political pundits here with an apparent show of their solidarity last Friday when they travelled together to East Java to visit the graves of their fathers.
The two – one, the most popular opposition figure and the other, the leader of the largest Muslim group – first prayed at the Blitar grave of Ms Megawati's father, founding President Sukarno, before heading for Mr Abdurrahman's hometown, Jombang, where his father and grandfather are buried.
The joint appearance, just two days after Mr Abdurrahman emerged as Ms Megawati's strongest challenger for the October 20 presidential contest, set off speculation that his bid was merely a ploy to boost her chances against incumbent President B.J. Habibie, widely seen as a bad risk.
The friendship between the two had early on seen their parties locked in a power-sharing alliance, with Mr Abdurrahman also functioning as a bridge between her more secular base and the larger Muslim community suspicious that she was more receptive towards Christians.
But Ms Megawati's continued disinterest in cutting deals with other parties had created a vacuum which allowed leaders of the smaller Muslim parties to form their own alliance to block her, attracting even reform leaders like Dr Amien Rais who is her ally, but on paper.
Is Mr Abdurrahman taking advantage of that Central Axis group, now a fairly formidable voting bloc almost on par with Ms Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party-Perjuangan (PDI-P), to propel himself into the hot seat?
Or is he neutralising its impact by pretending to be its best hope for political supremacy, the aim being to make sure it does not turn to Dr Habibie in frustration? Both he and Ms Megawati are not telling.
She is clearly not behaving like a politician in distress, unlike Dr Habibie, who continues to court one and all frenetically, sometimes with success. Her close aides would only say that her sole aim was to win the presidency as mandated by her party, and that she was prepared to share power with other players. Her Cabinet, for instance, is likely to include only four or five card-carrying PDI-P members.
Have the other posts been promised to other parties in return for support? Golkar leaders seem to think they have secured the vice-presidency for their chief, Mr Akbar Tandjung, who cannot talk openly about it without risking an open rebellion within his party ranks since he is supposed to be committed to helping Dr Habibie win.
Aides of Ms Megawati, who helped arrange some of the secret talks, would only say that "everybody is in the basket" although the smaller Muslim parties had shut their doors on her.
"The deals are done," said one aide, adding cryptically: "But everybody is still playing games." The semi-blind Mr Abdurrahman was not a real threat to Ms Megawati's claim on the presidency, he said.
"I don't think that people are being realistic enough to make very serious considerations about his health. He can't read, write or walk without help."
Privately, a number of political analysts have been worried that the two strokes Mr Abdurrahman suffered in the last year have affected his mental faculties. "But he is the only person available" to Muslim leaders eager to ensure that their community was no longer marginalised politically like in the Suharto years, said analyst Salim Said.
"This is what you get in a country where people were not allowed to play politics for a long time. You have to squeeze the field to come up with Megawati." And even then, she was not playing the game like normal politicians, he said, behaving either like a novice or exuding over-confidence.
An unknown factor too features prominently in the political make-up of both Ms Megawati and Mr Abdurrahman – a belief in the mystical.
Insiders say both decided on their own political trajectories after receiving blessings from their dead fathers in visions. Their joint pilgrimage on Friday would either have convinced them to pursue their present paths or might lead to more surprises in an already bewildering game.