Indonesia's young government unveiled its first budget yesterday with a promise to fight what some fear could be a losing battle to end religious violence and repair a shattered economy.
It pledged to work to end both corruption and economic hardship, which most analysts see as the root of the constant unrest that is blocking recovery from more than two years of savage recession across the huge archipelago of more than 200 million people.
"We are in a difficult situation, one where we need a real social safety net to lift the dignity and value of our nation," President Abdurrahman Wahid told parliament on the three-month anniversary of his election.
Several Indonesian provinces - especially those wealthiest in natural resources - are pressing Jakarta for a far greater share of what they produce.
The government said they could have more but warned against big provinces being too greedy at the expense of poorer ones.
Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri's speech stressed the importance of giving the impoverished masses - who account for most of the world's fourth largest population - a chance to improve their economic position. The government promised to stamp out corruption, for long endemic in Indonesia, and to improve a bloated, inefficient and underpaid bureaucracy, and establish the rule of law.
As the budget was announced, the government said it had agreed on a new economic plan with the International Monetary Fund.
The so-called letter of intent is needed to release a fresh tranche of money from the IMF, which is leading a more than $45 billion package to help the country recover from prolonged economic and political crisis.
The visiting US Treasury Secretary, Mr Lawrence Summers, promised that Washington would hand Indonesia more aid as long as Jakarta pressed ahead with economic reforms.
The US ambassador to the UN, Mr Richard Holbroke, last week warned the Indonesian military that any attempts to undermine President Wahid would leave Indonesia an international pariah.
Mr Wahid, in an interview with foreign reporters on Wednesday, dismissed warnings of an imminent coup, saying he trusted most of his generals.
But the continuing violence was unnerving investors far more than any weaknesses in the economy, and Indonesia's financial markets took only marginal relief from what was seen generally as a well-structured budget.
"I'm quite comfortable with the [budget] targets. It's the political situation that I'm not comfortable with," said Mr Endarto Weltam, vice-president of treasury at the Industrial Bank of Japan in Jakarta.