Jay Solomon, Jakarta – Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri's appointment to manage the Indonesian government's daily business has calmed legislators who feared political gridlock if President Abdurrahman Wahid didn't overhaul his beleaguered administration.

Now many Indonesians are asking: Can the 53-year-old daughter of Indonesia's founding father, Sukarno, run this problem-plagued country any better than the poorly organized and ineffective Mr. Wahid? Megawati Sukarnoputri Indonesia's currency and stock market strengthened modestly Thursday in response to Ms. Megawati's appointment. And the first casualty of a cabinet shake-up promised by Mr. Wahid appeared: Senior Economic Minister Kwik Kian Gie announced he would step down later this month.

But Ms. Megawati's new role – forced on Mr. Wahid by a rebellious Parliament – raises fresh questions about the structure and stability of Indonesia's political system, which is struggling to evolve after more than three decades of authoritarian rule under former President Suharto. For one thing, government officials and legislators must figure out just how a Wahid-Megawati power-sharing arrangement will work and what its legal basis will be. Aides to Ms. Megawati talked, for example, about giving the vice president a free hand in making cabinet appointments and setting policy objectives. But no formal description of her duties and powers has been disclosed.

Uneasy Relationship A bigger concern is whether Ms. Megawati can handle her new management role, which Mr. Wahid announced Wednesday at a session of Indonesia's supreme legislative body, the People's Consultative Assembly.

Reserved, conservative and not known for her administrative skills, Ms. Megawati failed in her 10 months as vice president to generate much confidence in her governing abilities. More over, her once-close relationship with Mr. Wahid has grown increasingly uneasy. Aides say Ms. Megawati now harbors a deep distrust of the near-blind Islamic leader because she feels he betrayed her in several political maneuvers over the past year.

Abdurrahman Wahid

That Ms. Megawati has grown restless as Indonesia's No. 2 isn't surprising, her confidantes say, considering how she got the job. As chairman of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, or PDI-P, Ms. Megawati ran a populist campaign that captured the plurality of votes cast – 34% – in last year's parliamentary election. She was widely expected to emerge as Indonesia's leader when the People's Consultative Assembly met in October to elect a president. But last minute politicking by Ms. Megawati's opponents, who recruited Mr. Wahid as their presidential candidate, denied her the post, sowing the seeds of her distrust toward Mr. Wahid.

Driving home from the Parliament building after losing the presidential vote, Ms. Megawati told former PDI-P executive Eros Djarot that "my brother has stabbed me in the back," in reference to Mr. Wahid. Ms. Megawati agreed to take the vice-presidential job only after intense lobbying by her PDI-P colleagues and the Indonesian military, which feared popular unrest if she was left out of the new government.

Once in office, Mr. Wahid presented Ms. Megawati with largely ceremonial tasks, while making jokes about her well-known reluctance to speak in public. Her days have typically consisted of officiating at an endless stream of art exhibits, diplomatic functions, and ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Ambassadors, ministers and religious leaders occasionally visit her at the colonial-era vice-president's residence in Jakarta to discuss affairs of state. But Ms. Megawati has had little role in any weighty decision-making. (Ms. Megawati didn't respond to requests to be interviewed for this article.) Mr. Wahid did delegate one daunting task to his deputy: He asked Ms. Megawati to try to calm the sectarian and separatist unrest afflicting the provinces of Maluku and West Papua in eastern Indonesia. Ms. Megawati's father championed the idea of a unified, though pluralistic, Indonesian state, and she was seen as the symbol that could potentially bridge the differences among rival religious and ethnic groups in the troubled provinces. Need for 'Concrete Action' But Ms. Megawati's and the government's failure to bring stability to these regions has only deepened the divide between the nation's top two leaders, her aides say. In Maluku, violence intensified early this year, despite a trip by Ms. Megawati to the province. Ms. Megawati visited religious leaders, and was seen crying at churches and mosques damaged by rioters. But her failure to provide a coherent plan to address the problem upset many Indonesians caught up in the violence. "We don't need tears, but peace and concrete actions," says Hilal Thalib, of the Laskar Jihad Islamic group.

One bloodbath in the island of Halmahera at the end of last year coincided with a trip to Hong Kong by the vice president and her family. That fueled protests by Islamic groups angry at Ms. Megawati's apparent insensitivity to the turmoil. In one demonstration, 600 students, clad in white turbans, cried "Allahu Akbar" – "God is Great" – and demanded Mr. Wahid remove her from her assignment. "She needs to become more serious in dealing with the problems in Maluku," says T. B. Abdurrahman, a student who helped organize the rally.

Ms. Megawati privately seethed at such criticism because she felt Mr. Wahid had set her up to fail. Ms. Megawati has told confidantes that she wanted to order the arrests of rogue army troops in the affected provinces to restore order, but was given no authority to do so. "This makes me look incompetent," Ms. Megawati told one visitor to her Jakarta home recently. She has asked for a letter from Mr. Wahid giving her more power to deal with the Maluku violence but has yet to receive one.

The two leaders have also differed sharply on how to handle calls for independence in West Papua province, formerly known as Irian Jaya. Mr. Wahid has adopted a lenient tone in responding to the secessionist threat there. He allowed the West Papuans to hoist their own flag across the province. Ms. Megawati opposed the move, contending that this would fuel the separatist movement. "She feels vindicated on this issue," says an acquaintance, because the West Papuans have escalated their demands for independence.

Now, estranged, Ms. Megawati and Mr. Wahid barely communicate when they meet, aides to both leaders say. Meetings arranged for the two to mend their differences usually deteriorate into small talk about the weather, new clothes or food. "They are both from Java," says a chief adviser to Mr. Wahid. "They don't want to look each other in the eye." Publicly, Mr. Wahid plays down their differences. Ms. Megawati's refusal to read Mr. Wahid's so-called accountability speech to the People's Consultative Assembly Monday, was shrugged off by the 60-year-old Islamic scholar. "Megawati and myself have differences, but that doesn't mean we can't work together," Mr. Wahid told the 700-member assembly.

'First minister' plan is rejected

But a movement to undercut Mr. Wahid was already afoot. Going into this week's assembly session, aides to the president were pushing a plan to install a "first minister" to better manage the government's day-to-day operations. In particular, they wanted to name Lt. Gen. Bambang Yudhoyono – the minister of mines and energy – to the post.

Ms. Megawati's supporters shot the plan down. "Why should we accept this, as it's an insult to Megawati?" says Laksamana Sukardi, her chief economic adviser and the minister of state enterprises before Mr. Wahid sacked him last April. "Why should we trust the president anymore?" This week, Ms. Megawati's PDI-P formed an alliance with other political parties critical of Mr. Wahid – including the party of former President Suharto, Golongan Karya – to pressure the president to give Ms. Megawati responsibility for managing the government's daily affairs. Under the new arrangement, Mr. Wahid is to function as a kind of head of state, with hands-on responsibility only for foreign relations. Many lawmakers said the message to Mr. Wahid was quite stark: Do this now or risk being impeached later.

Having won their confrontation with Mr. Wahid, Ms. Megawati's aides are now trying to cobble together an effective team to help administer the country. One step in that direction was the resignation of Mr. Kwik, the senior economic minister, which was announced Thursday.

"We'll focus on judicial and economic reforms and insuring security," said Mr. Sukardi, who is likely to serve as an adviser to Ms. Megawati. But he also added the exact form of the new administrative setup "isn't clear yet." – Staff reporter Puspa Madani and special correspondent Rin Hindryati in Jakarta contributed to this article.