Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – He outlasted a regime, turned around a backlash against his Golkar party and escaped a damning graft conviction. But time is running out for the ultimate political survivor, Mr Akbar Tandjung.

Indonesia's most consummate politician is nearing the end of an illustrious career, after his devastating defeat at the hands of Vice-President Jusuf Kalla for the post of Golkar chairman.

For the first time in four decades, the former Golkar chief is without a post. Most of his loyalists in the country's largest political party were purged immediately after his successor took over on Sunday.

This eliminates the possibility of him continuing to wield his clout in the party he has led for five years. But the former Speaker of Parliament has said he will not leave politics completely.

Still, many observers believe he has lost the lustre which earned him the nickname of "the eel" by the local media. Mr Akbar said on Sunday: "I have devoted myself to politics for so long. But in politics, it is never over." But for now, he wants to focus on his family, and plans to visit his two daughters studying in the United States.

There can be a consolation prize for the man who has spent most of his life in public office. It can be an ambassadorial position or he may be the head of government-sanctioned bodies such as the Indonesian Red Cross.

Friends and observers, however, doubt Mr Akbar will be happy with such titles. Some aides say he may emulate the late former president, Mr B.J. Habibie, and set up a think-tank, as he had expressed his desire to be involved in education or humanitarian work after politics.

Others hint that he might team up with former president Megawati Sukarnoputri and her husband Taufik Kiemas to boost her chances of running again in the presidential election in 2009.

"Politics runs in his blood, it is his calling," said a party insider. "I think he will look for the opportunity to be engaged again, somehow or other, although the room for him to move will be very small now."

Mr Akbar started his career as the chairman of the influential Association of Islamic Students in the 1960s. He served as Golkar legislator for the next three decades, in some of those years doubling as Cabinet minister for four terms in the Suharto and Habibie administrations. In 1999, he became Golkar's first ever democratically elected chairman and soon after that became Parliament Speaker. He was a key player in Muslim cleric Abdurrahman Wahid's rise to the presidency as well as his impeachment 18 months later.

Last year, Mr Akbar was convicted of graft and sentenced to four years in jail, but the sentence was later overturned.

And despite anti-Golkar sentiment following the fall of the Suharto regime, he revived the party and led it to win this year's legislative elections.

Early this year, he tried for Golkar's presidential ticket, but lost to former military chief and party outsider Wiranto. This, many said, was the start of his downfall. Mr Akbar's half-hearted support was seen as a contributing factor in Mr Wiranto's subsequent loss in the first round of the presidential polls.

But his biggest blunder, which split party elites, was the decision to endorse then president Megawati in the September presidential run-off. That was seen as a sell-out by Golkar members and sympathisers. "It was repeated miscalculations. He is finished because he has pushed the envelope too far," said one observer.