July 25, 2001, 3:55pm EDT INDONESIA'S ASSEMBLY STALLS CHOOSING MEGAWATI DEPUTY Indonesia's top lawmaking body battled over choosing a new vice president, ending the political unity that resulted in the ouster of former President Abdurrahman Wahid last weekend.

Online NewsHour Special Report: Indonesia July 23, 2001: Megawati replaces ousted Wahid. July 22, 2001: Lawmakers reject Wahid's declaration of a state of emergency. July 21, 2001: Indonesia's assembly summons Wahid to account for his time in office. July 20, 2001: Examining Wahid's political struggle. Profiles: Megawati Sukarnoputri Abdurrahman Wahid Feb. 8, 2000: Indonesia's ambassador to the U.S. discusses political problems in his home country. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of Asia.   United Nations U.S. Embassy in Jakarta Indonesian Department of Foreign Affairs	Legislators in the world's fourth most populous nation overwhelmingly supported the ouster, which placed Megawati Sukarnoputri at the government's helm. She was the vice president under Wahid and is the daughter of Indonesia's founding president. Political infighting, however, stalled a plan to quickly pick a new deputy for Megawati. Front-runners for the post are Hamzah Haz, the head of the United Development Party, Indonesia's third-largest political group, and Akbar Tandjung, the parliamentary speaker and leader of Golkar, the country's second-largest political party and once the backers of former dictator Suharto. Both men have been Megawati foes in the past. Haz led a Muslim coalition that blocked her presidential bid in 1999, saying women were unfit to lead the world's largest Muslim nation. Tandjung worked with Suharto when the dictator clamped down on democratic movements, including those of a group led by Megawati, in the early 1990s. The new president herself has not made a public statement since brief remarks after her swearing-in Monday. Advisers say she is due to appoint her new cabinet within days.
	Wahid's exit
	Meanwhile, former President Wahid, holed up in the Dutch-built presidential palace since his ouster, said today he would leave Indonesia to seek medical treatment in the U.S. Before today, Wahid had refused to accept the assembly's decision to remove him. The 61-year-old Wahid is nearly blind and frail after suffering two strokes. He told reporters today he decided to leave based on medical advice. "The doctors are afraid my stroke will come back again," Wahid told Associated Press Television News. "I've already had a stroke twice, they would like to prevent it." Wahid said his opponents in the legislature and military would reinstate the limited freedoms of Suharto, who led the country from 1966 until his ouster in 1998. "They used the quarrel between the politicians to set up their own rule, which I think will slide little by little to the old ways," he said of military leaders, who refused to enforce a state of emergency he declared during his last hours in office. "People will react to the return of censorship, to the return of many, many restrictions in their lives," he said. His brother and personal physician, Umar Wahid, told the AP the former president would undergo a physical examination at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md.