The smiling daughter of Indonesia's former dictator Suharto is waging a high-profile electoral campaign – less than six years after her father was forced to resign amid massive civil unrest.
Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, known as Tutut, is campaigning for a party led by a retired general who proudly calls himself a Suharto lackey.
She has given food handouts to the poor and tried to exploit feelings, often expressed by Indonesians, that the country was more secure and economically prosperous during the repressive 32-year rule of her father.
"Mr. Harto [Suharto] wishes that all Indonesian people can have a house, can send their children to school and can practise their religion peacefully," Tutut told one campaign rally.
Her political rivals doubt she can do much except divert votes from Golkar, the leading challenger to President Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
But prominent political scientist Arbi Sanit says her campaign has the potential to help cleanse her family's image. If not at this election, perhaps in 2009 it could bring Cendana – as the Suharto family is known – closer to a return to power, he says.
"This is an increasingly complex situation for Indonesia," Sanit said. Suharto stepped down in May 1998 amid a crippling economic crisis, massive civil unrest and hopes for reform which many Indonesians now say have not been realized.
Indonesia's April 5 legislative general elections will be followed on July 5 by the country's first-ever direct presidential vote.
Tutut has been put forward as a candidate by the Concern for the Nation Functional Party (PKPB) chaired by Raden Hartono, a former Suharto army commander and ex-official of Golkar, the party which backed his regime.
"With an extraordinary boldness I want to affirm that I am a Suharto lackey," Hartono told party followers during a campaign rally. He was quoted by the Koran Tempo daily.
Indonesia experienced sustained economic growth and a dramatic reduction in poverty during Suharto's reign, but much of the country's vast wealth was skimmed off by a tiny elite linked to Suharto's military-backed regime.
The general began his rise to power amid a mass slaughter of alleged communists which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in 1965/66. No one has ever been named as ordering the massacres.
Thousands were killed in Aceh province and East Timor during his rule. Hundreds died in various efforts to stamp out political dissent.
Staff at PKPB's central Jakarta headquarters wear olive-green T-shirts and jackets. Party television and radio advertisements feature a man shouting like a military drill instructor to remind voters they should choose PKPB.
A 1999 investigation by Time magazine found that Suharto and his six children had cash and other assets conservatively estimated at 15 billion dollars. Tutut was worth an estimated 700 million dollars, the magazine said.
Sanit expressed concern that Tutut's share of the family fortune could be used to buy votes – a common practice among other parties, too.
Roy Janis, executive board chairman of Megawati's PDI-P, said Tutut and her party are an obstacle for Golkar as it tries to regain power. "Maybe Tutut and Hartono will be a bit of a bother because the votes will divide in the legislative elections," Janis said.
Golkar predicts it will increase its percentage of the vote from 22 to 30 percent while Janis says PDI-P will be lucky to hold on to the 34 percent it won in the 1999 election.
Fahmi Idris, a Golkar deputy chairman, said "we know Miss Tutut spends quite a lot of money" and is reasonably popular – but not enough to be elected president.