Lindsay Murdoch, Darwin – It was a poignant moment, full of irony. Megawati Sukarnoputri dons army fatigues and beret and climbs aboard a Scorpion tank.
The Vice-President has plenty of reason to despise Indonesia's armed forces, which have been accused of widespread repression and plunder during the 32-year Suharto dictatorship.
On July 27, 1996, the army presided over an attack on the Jakarta headquarters of Mrs Megawati's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle, the then main opposition to Suharto's iron-fist rule. When the dust had settled, more than 20 of her supporters had been killed and others were missing.
In 1959, Mrs Megawati's father, former president Sukarno, formed what turned out to be a disastrous pact with the military. In the 1960s, after Suharto's rise to power following the failed 1965 coup, Indonesia's founding president was sidelined by the military. His death was lonely and ignominious.
But more than two years after the downfall of Suharto, Mrs Megawati has emerged as one of the strongest allies of the country's hardline, anti-reformist generals.
Some observers worry that her likely elevation – sooner or later – into the presidency, would represent a de facto return to power of the discredited armed forces.
They also worry that under Mrs Megawati's leadership, hopes for liberal, democratic reforms that were encapsulated in the anti-Suharto movement of 1998 will be set back, perhaps even lost.
As Mrs Megawati stood atop the tank at a military parade in the West Java city of Bandung late last year, she heard the army chief, General Endriartono Sutarto, tell combat-ready troops not to hesitate in their duties, presumably even if that meant killing civilians.
"As long as you follow the procedures and regulations, killing or shooting at your enemy is not violating human rights," General Endriartono said.
With the 15-month presidency of Abdurrahman Wahid crippled and his political rivals baying for his blood, Mrs Megawati is the only person who under the constitution can take power before the next national elections, due in 2004.
Many top military officers, whose insubordination towards Mr Wahid has become increasingly clear, are gravitating towards Mrs Megawati as powerful figures in her party try to prod her into forcing the President from power.
The military's top brass is telling people they favor an all-out effort to replace Mr Wahid through a complicated, four-month process of impeachment.
One senior general, quoted in the Far Eastern Economic Review, described the military's relationship with Mr Wahid as "very precarious".
When parliament voted early this month to censure Mr Wahid over two corruption scandals involving people close to him, the 38-member military and police faction in parliament stood together to signal their support.
Tradition had it that they abstain from such a blatantly political and public vote, particularly one against their supreme commander.
Hardline generals last year blocked Mr Wahid promoting a reformist officer, Lieutenant-General Agus Wirahadikusumah, whose criticisms of army corruption had upset hardline officers.Mr Wahid's efforts to push the military out of politics back to the barracks have stalled. According to some sources, two weeks ago Mr Wahid wanted to replace General Endriartono with General Agus after the President had suggested the dissolution of parliament and the implementation of emergency rule. Mrs Megawati helped block the appointment and backed the military's objection to the idea.
The military's official stand is that it will remain loyal to the constitution and to the president, who ever that is. It insists it wants to stay out of day-to-day politics.
But unlike in the past, when its political plays were carried out amid secrecy and in the tradition of Javanese shadow plays, its opposition to Mr Wahid's rule has become almost as public as it could be.
The senior general, quoted by the Review, said: "We now have the perception that he [Wahid] wants to abuse the military to support him in power, which is in contrast to the military's present position of reforming itself to be out of politics. He is trying to make the military his political tool."
Senior generals and Mrs Megawati agree on key issues, such as the imperative to protect, above all else, the unitary state of Indonesia. Observers say this translates into crushing separatist movements in Aceh and Irian Jaya (West Papua), as distinct from a persuasive approach favored by Mr Wahid.
Under Suharto, loyalty to the unitary state was used as justification for the brutal repression of anybody who dared challenge Jakarta's rule.
Observers warn that, as Indonesia teeters on the brink of disaster, the lust for power could lead to collective amnesia and the formation of political alliances that take the country back to its recent dark days.
A possible scenario alarming Mr Wahid's advisers is the formation of an anti-Wahid coalition made up of the military and police faction, Mrs Megawati's party, which controls one third of seats in parliament, and Golkar, the second-largest party, which protected Suharto's corrupt regime.
Some of Mr Wahid's fiercest critics are figures who received favors to become extraordinarily wealthy during Suharto's rule.
As part of his counter-attack against those people plotting his downfall, Mr Wahid is pushing ahead to prosecute them, raising the stakes dramatically in an already high stakes game.