Lindsay Murdoch – There will be a banquet in Parliament's Great Hall hosted by the Prime Minister, a Governor-General's dinner, red carpet, effusive speeches, toasts and an exchange of carefully chosen gifts.

Abdurrahman Wahid is about to receive a welcome to Australia on Monday as elaborate as the one the Howard Government rolled out for the former United States president Bill Clinton when he visited Canberra in 1996.

Not since Soeharto lied to Gough Whitlam about not invading East Timor when they met in Townsville more than 25 years ago has a serving Indonesian president visited Australia.

But much of the significance of the visit will be lost because 19 months after taking office, the 60-year-old Wahid has become a tragic figure in Indonesian politics whose days running his country of 210 million people are almost certainly numbered.

John Howard had encouraged Wahid to make the trip at any time of his choosing and ordered he be given the grandest welcome despite most of Jakarta's political elite wanting to see him booted out of office as quickly as possible.

But adding to the pall over Wahid's trip will be the possibility that Howard, too, will soon lose office at the Federal election that must soon be held. The joke doing the rounds of Jakarta's diplomats is that their Canberra encounter will be one of two dead men walking.

Little of substance is expected out of Wahid's two-day visit to Canberra and Sydney, followed later in the week by a 24-hour stopover in Darwin en route to the Philippines from New Zealand. "The important thing is that the visit is taking place," the Australian Ambassador in Jakarta, Ric Smith, said on Thursday after meeting Wahid to discuss arrangements. "We see this as a historic visit and we will welcome him on that basis."

Unlike usual visits by heads of government, no formal agreements will be signed, no significant joint declarations made. Officials in Jakarta say the most Wahid will seek from the visit is a reassurance from Australia about respect for Indonesia's sovereignty no matter how bad things may get in provinces such as Irian Jaya (West Papua). He will quickly get it.

Howard and his Cabinet have many issues of concern they would like to discuss at length with Wahid as his country goes through a difficult transition after 32 years of Soeharto's corrupt and repressive rule.

These include growing concerns about the security of Australian mining operations in the country, people-smuggling syndicates, continuing militia thuggery in West Timor and the military killings in Aceh and the Malukus.

But what's the point? The security forces are in revolt against Wahid, refusing to impose a state of emergency or accept his sacking of senior commanders. The Government is in paralysis.

Desperate to avoid impeachment, Wahid promised to hand daily running of the Government to his Vice-President, Megawati Sukarnoputri. Even if Wahid escapes impeachment at a special session of the People's Consultative Assembly, the highest parliament, within weeks he will be, at best, a figurehead with little or no authority.

Palace sources say that during his last days in power Wahid is stubbornly refusing to compromise any longer on issues he strongly believes in, among them the need for the Australian visit – which he has cancelled five times previously because of fierce opposition to it in Jakarta.

Greg Barton, a Melbourne academic who has written Wahid's biography, said yesterday the President has no illusions about what can be achieved from the visit. "It will be big on symbolism – a case of pushing through the barriers that have held the relationship back and putting it on a solid footing," said Barton, who will be in the presidential entourage.

Jusuf Wanandi, a board member of the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said although Wahid will soon lose power, he remains the best person to "more or less patch up the emotional side" after the souring of the bilateral relationship over East Timor. "It is possible for the President to make the first step in restarting the relationship as long as he can remain sensible and not get carried away by any stupid advice."

Wahid's decision to make the visit has given his political rivals and critics even more ammunition to fire at him, not that they needed any after he spent months visiting more than 50 countries while problems festered at home.

They are citing the estimated cost of $1.4 million at a time that Indonesians face steep rises in fuel and power charges amid galloping inflation and a dangerously ballooning Budget deficit.

Sophan Sophiaan, one of Megawati's MPs, said Wahid's determination to make the trip shows he lacks awareness of the urgent problems at home. "It's true that Indonesia's relationship with Australia needs significant improvement," Sophiaan said. "But the timing is just not right."

Dewi Fortuna Anwar, an adviser on foreign affairs to the former president, B.J. Habibie, said that in normal circumstances Wahid's trip to Australia would be a watershed in repairing the relationship. "But given the situation in Indonesia, many people feel that his going to Australia is not timely," she said.

Wahid should be focusing on problems at home such as civil unrest, violent conflicts and his uncertain future, she said. "The Parliament is not happy about his frequent absences. He has not paid much attention to the internal problems."

Anwar also said that given the uncertainty about the President's future, it is doubtful that anything substantial could be achieved from the visit. "It would be better if he postponed until after the special assembly sitting," she said.

An Australian official, who asked not to be identified, said that despite the criticisms, the trip would be an important circuit breaker in a diplomatic stand-off between the leaders of the two countries. "If Kim Beazley wins power you can bet he will be on the plane up to Jakarta as soon as he reasonably can," the official said. "Likewise, if John Howard is re-elected, the way will have been cleared for him to visit to Jakarta for the first time since the relationship collapsed."

It will not be all business for Wahid. In Sydney on Tuesday he will catch up with old friends such as Curtis Levy, who makes film documentaries. Among the entourage will be four or five of Wahid's ministers, two of his daughters and his wife.