THE short-haired woman walked nimbly on the path dividing the rice paddies. She had no lines of fatigue on her face, even though she had just completed a journey of nearly eight hours from Jakarta. On Saturday morning two weeks ago, in a corner of a village located in Kasepuhan Cisitu, Lebak Regency, on the slopes of Mount Halimun, she met her constituents.

"How are you? All well?" she said in a friendly voice to a group of village mothers who had