Chris Brummitt, Jakarta – With calls growing for her to lead the nation, Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri lashed out at critics who say she lacks the experience for the presidency.

As President Abdurrahman Wahid tries to stave off impeachment over allegations of corruption and incompetence, Megawati has become, in effect, president-in-waiting. Most lawmakers are openly calling on her to replace Wahid, who desperately needs her support to cling to power. But she has said virtually nothing about her ambitions.

Speaking out in a rare television interview Wednesday night, Megawati, the daughter of Indonesia's founding president, Sukarno, answered critics who question her political ability.

"It appears that I am considered to be a housewife. I say to those people who belittle housewives: what's wrong with that? It does not mean a housewife does not understand politics," she said. On Thursday, she added to tensions by failing to show up at a Cabinet meeting chaired by Wahid, who only last week replaced several key ministers in an effort to please her, make a deal and escape impeachment. Impeachment proceedings are slated to start in the legislature on August 1.

Megawati attended the opening of an environmental exhibition and refused to comment when reporters asked why she had avoided the Cabinet session. In the hourlong question-and-answer session broadcast Wednesday, Megawati also gave little away. "I don't know," she said when asked if growing up in the shadow of her father had prepared her for a life in politics.

But Kusnanto Anggoro, a political analyst, said Megawati was becoming more assertive in her quest for the presidency and was increasingly antagonizing Wahid. "In the past, I think she was just following the wind of history, but now she is becoming more determined to get a political objective," Anggoro said. "I think she is determined now to become the president of Indonesia." Last Friday, Wahid shocked lawmakers with the surprise Cabinet change – his third major shake-up in the 19 months since he became Indonesia's first democratically elected president in more than four decades.

In one move, Wahid appointed a security minister who is one of Megawati's key advisers, saying he hoped the new minister would help broker a compromise with his vice president. On Thursday, the dismissed security minister, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, called for a new leader and new government. "The interests of the state have to be saved first before personal interests," the state-run Antara news agency quoted him as saying.

Aides said Megawati gave the interview to mark the 100th anniversary of Sukarno's birth on Wednesday. Sukarno proclaimed Indonesia's independence at the end of World War II and was ousted amid political turmoil in 1966. He died under house arrest in 1970, but is remembered now as a strong nationalist.