APILE of papers had been neatly stacked on the desk of President Megawati Sukarnoputri since mid-April, before she left for Eastern Europe, and was untouched even on the day she departed on April 17. It is an important pile: a draft government regulation on the establishment of Pertamina as a limited liability state enterprise.

The government has long been hoping to change the status of Pertamina, which was officially made a state enterprise in 1