INTELLIGENCE

AS THE VOTE COUNT IN INDONESIA'S June 7 elections slowly rises (60% of the ballots had been counted by July 7), has the mercurial Muslim leader Abdurrahman Wahid - a.k.a. Gus Dur - become a ship adrift between political ports? He ferries regularly between major political players - meeting President B.J. Habibie one day, then the next with fellow Muslim oppositionist Amien Rais of the National Mandate Party (PAN in Indonesian) as well as Muslim-linked United Development Party (PPP) head Hamzah Haz, whose party is expected to ally with Habibie's ruling Golkar. Sources say he has even met with former president Suharto's eldest daughter Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana. Is his long-standing alliance with opposition leader Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) no longer stable?

Wahid's National Awakening Party (PKB), based on the 30-million-strong Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) mass Muslim movement that he leads, was considered the PDI-P's natural partner in the coming coalition-building battle for the presidency. But a high-ranking source in the NU says that Wahid is not lost at sea and in fact has a destination clearly in sight: he is trying to unite Muslim-led parties as a counterweight to Megawati. Her PDI-P, an offshoot of a union between Christian and secular nationalist groups, is seen as dominated by non-Muslims. Wahid's bloc could include PKB, PAN, PPP and perhaps even Golkar, now led by Akbar Tandjung, a former Muslim student activist.

The aim is to pressure PDI-P leaders to share power with Islamic parties in exchange for their support for Megawati's presidential bid. That would help resolve the looming conflict between political Islam and PDI-P and prevent the presidential election from plunging into divisive turmoil. Seeing the inevitability of a Megawati presidency, Wahid believes he is charting a course for the Islamic majority that could keep the whole nation afloat - with him, conveniently, as navigator.

India: Looking for Spares

We reported earlier on India's scramble to buy munitions to continue its artillery battle with Pakistan in Kashmir. Now New Delhi faces trouble getting spare parts for the main weapon it is using in the battle - its 410 Swedish-built Bofors FH 77B howitzers. India recently lifted its 1987 prohibition on dealing with Sweden's Celsius Corp., but Swedish law prohibits the export of defense hardware to countries engaged in either direct conflict with another country or in a civil war. The ban on Celsius that New Delhi expeditiously repealed stems from the $50 million kickback scandal that sorely tainted the Rajiv Gandhi administration in the late 1980s. But according to Steffan Sohlman, Inspector General of Sweden's National Inspectorate of Strategic Products in Stockholm, the Swedes feel a deal could still legally be made "if it is in conformity with the goals and objectives of Swedish foreign policy." Sweden, eager to sell the spares, could try to fudge the issue of whether the "near war" situation in Kargil - as defined by PM Atal Behari Vajpayee - equals "conflict" status. Other European Union countries with which India is negotiating for a wide range of defense equipment have laws similar to Sweden's, and last year the E.U. Parliament asked member states to adopt a code of conduct to prevent the flow of arms to "regions of instability."

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