Michael Shari, Singapore – For a while, Megawati Sukarnoputri had the edge in the race for Indonesia's presidency. Her party had won the highest percentage of the popular vote in the June elections, and she enjoyed the apparent backing of the military. So the betting was that when legislators voted for a President on October 20, Megawati would walk away with the crown.

But now all bets are off. Instead, the odds of a strong presidency emerging from the chaos decline every day. Megawati could still end up as the next President. But so could current President B.J. Habibie – or blind Muslim cleric Abdurrahman Wahid, who leads a coalition of seven Islamic parties. And none of them seems to have the stature needed to lead Indonesia's unruly People's Consultative Assembly and so push through needed reforms. None of them can stem the influence of the military. And to secure backing, all these candidates may capitalize on the rise in nationalism. That, in turn, could scare off badly needed foreign investment.

The biggest surprise is that Habibie, though wounded by a banking scandal and the disaster in East Timor, is staging a comeback. If he wins, the consequences could be explosive. Habibie, who took over after Suharto stepped down in May, 1998, is opposed by the thousands of pro-democracy students on campuses around Java. This group turned out heavily on June 7 to vote for Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party. If a Habibie victory sparks student violence, the ultimate winner could be Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Wiranto, who could justify a stepped-up role for the military.

Megawati herself unwittingly resuscitated Habibie's chances. First, she snubbed an offer by the head of the ruling Golkar party to shift the party's support to her from Habibie. And she now refuses to work with Wahid, who has said his supporters oppose the idea of a woman president. Megawati's quarrels ended an earlier effort to forge links between her party, Golkar, and Wahid's group. "If she has a strategy, it's confusing," says Jusuf Wanandi, director of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta.

Megawati's only hope now may be to patch things up with Wahid. Meanwhile, Golkar insiders say Habibie is gaining ground by promising the assembly, which is heavy with Suharto-era figures and 56 army generals, five more years of generous kickbacks. Habibie's office did not answer requests to discuss the allegation.

As the confusion grows, so does General Wiranto's power. In mid-July, Wiranto secured the support of his regional commanders to become a powerful vice-president to a figurehead President – who at that time was expected to be Megawati. Now, Golkar officials say Wiranto has agreed to run for vice-president on Habibie's ticket.

"Wiranto is presumably looking for a weak President, and at this point Habibie looks like the best candidate," says Harold Crouch, an Indonesia expert at Australian National University. Wiranto dined with Habibie at the presidential palace on October 13.

With Wiranto's influence on the rise, and with new political camps asserting themselves in the assembly, power already is draining away from the presidency. "It has reached the point where it doesn't really matter who the President is anymore," says Bruce Gale, Singapore-based regional manager of the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd. Indonesia's experiment with democracy is certainly not over. But its long-term health remains very much in question.