Many hope to see the new team last the full term, but early signs are discouraging, says Yang Razali Kassim

What a way to start off a new Cabinet. President Abdurrahman Wahid has been insisting that he and his vice-president remain the best of friends; it's the media that's been making things up, he charged.

But Ms Megawati Sukarnoputri was nowhere in sight when the new line-up was announced yesterday. And what did the president say? "She's gone home to take a bath."

If Gus Dur, as the president is popularly known, had meant this to show his great sense of humour, it didn't really work. The media was not impressed. And the president was more prickly than he normally would be.

Clearly, the heat from the tussle over the Cabinet must have been too much for Ms Megawati. If taking a bath was more important than standing by the president in a show of unity, something is certainly not right.

This new Cabinet actually has much going for it. Expectations, and sympathies, are high – not just in Indonesia but also internationally.

But the signal yesterday was not a pleasant one. Can anyone be blamed for seeing this as an early sign of trouble ahead? Would it be too much to ask how long this new Cabinet will last?

It's not difficult to see why Ms Megawati was upset. This was supposed to be her Cabinet. She has behind her the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), which was convinced Gus Dur could not on his own deliver the economic recovery the country badly needs. Indeed, he is under obligation to pass some of the stewardship to Ms Megawati; his failure to do so could actually lead to his impeachment.

But this clearly was not to be. For none of her top men got into the key positions she wanted, especially the economic portfolios. Kwik Kian Gie did not end up with the powerful post of coordinating minister for the economy; neither did Laksamana Sukardi get the finance minister's post.

Instead, the two positions have gone to men of the president's own picking – Rizal Ramli, Mr Kwik's rival, and Priyadi Sapto Suhardjo, a controversial friend of Gus Dur's of many years.

As if this was not enough, Gus Dur got his way with several others. A good example is the other key position – the coordinating minister for politics and security – which went to another supporter, retired general Susilo Bambang Yudoyono.

Indeed, far from handing the whole Cabinet over to the vice-president, Gus Dur has packed it with several of his own men, or people sympathetic to him, like

Marzuki Darusman, who keeps his job as attorney-general, and Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, who also retains his maritime affairs ministry.

It's like giving Ms Megawati her new authority with the right hand and taking it back with the left. With no one to count on in the Cabinet she is supposed to lead, Ms Megawati will have a hard time fulfilling her MPR-mandated duties as the new driver of the government.

Gus Dur, of course, has a good excuse: the vice-president is just as incompetent as he is, he would say, and would need a few good men around her. Trouble is, the few good men aren't hers. It wouldn't be surprising if she sees this as a cunning move by the wily 60-year-old half-blind president to make it tough for her to deliver in her new role. So why should she fall for it?

Ms Megawati's decision to stay away from the announcement yesterday was a calculated move to keep her distance from the line-up. Should the new Cabinet fail, she wouldn't want to be associated with it. It's her way of telling the 700 members of the MPR who have just supported her: Don't blame me if anything goes wrong. With this inherent tension built into the new team, the new Cabinet is not likely to run a smooth course ahead. It might even end up with yet another reshuffle.

Even if the new Cabinet surprises everyone with unexpected punch and panache, it will be a Cabinet that would probably face a hostile legislature where Ms Megawati's men dominate, and where anti-Gus Dur sentiments still run high. The only thing that will help is results, and more results – especially on the economic front. But this won't be easy – unless he does a miracle, holds his tongue and takes his hands off the Cabinet.

With the newly-assertive MPR giving him at most one more year, or at worst three months, to prove himself, he needs to make the most of the second chance that the MPR has given him.

But the burden of delivery will fall also on two key men. Dr Rizal must help turn the economy around while Gen Yudhoyono's tough job is to keep the separatists at bay while snuffing out the burning embers of ethnic and religious divisions.

Both are equally difficult missions. The question is, who would be blamed if they fail – the president, or the vice-president or the two key ministers? The tougher of the two tasks falls on the shoulders of Dr Rizal and the new finance minister Priyadi.

Gus Dur's problem is that Mr Priyadi has a negative name in the market. He didn't even make it through the central bank's "fit and proper" test for the job of chief executive officer of a state-owned bank. Gus Dur's incessant campaign, or stubbornness, to still use him, despite criticisms, could be the seed of the president's own undoing.

The new Cabinet has been preceded by a tough tussle for control of the economic team. This is not surprising as the success or failure of the team would have a serious political backlash on either Gus Dur, or Ms Megawati or both.

But it is significant that the tussle was also between the pro-International Monetary Fund (IMF) school of economic thinkers, led by the once powerful players like the Berkeley-trained technocrats and their younger disciples, and the more nationalis-tic or "pro-sovereignty" economists, like Mr Kwik.

But Mr Kwik's absence from the new team does not mean the dominance of the pro-IMF thinkers. For Dr Rizal is known as a toughie too, inspired by the apparent success of Malaysia in turning around the economy without IMF assistance.

The problem for him is that the whole drive towards economic recovery has already been tightly defined – and controlled – by the Fund. Although he is no fan of the IMF, he, like Mr Kwik, is also shrewd enough to accept that the Fund cannot be so easily wished away, at least not just yet.

But if he had his way, he would almost certainly want to kick out the IMF. Dr Rizal is no stranger to fights; he's been in jail for protesting against Suharto. With Dr Rizal's rise as the key economic planner for a major regional player like Indonesia, is South-east Asia moving closer in the direction of greater independence of the IMF?

Even if this is so, this is not necessarily bad if the new Cabinet could give Indonesia a new resolve to be truly strong economically. This in turn would be good for the region if it could lead to more stability. So, after weeks of high drama, the new Cabinet line-up is finally in place. But the difficult task of pulling Indonesia out of its current morass is only beginning.

If there's good news for Gus Dur from the new Cabinet, it is that it's packed with his people, or at least politically neutral professionals. Gus Dur must make the most of this while he can. Can he?