Megawati was elected as a President of Indonesia, which had been plunged down into a total crisis and then made its way out of the IMF-controlled economy and accomplished the democratic transition. Many thought she could be successful politically thanks to her father, Soekarno. However, she made a different quality of leadership with her father in that she led Indonesia from crisis to recovery and conducted her own symbolic politics as a political victim and housewife. Her feminine nature was used to mobilize people's sympathy, and her politics of compromised non-intervention was effective in getting political competitors' support. The strategic redirection from mobilization to compromise left two contrasting consequences to her political career. As a national leader, she could achieve economic recovery and political stability; however, as an individual politician, she was not successful in securing another term as a President. Megawati is the case that stimulates imagination about the political solution of economic crisis in the Third World, the interrelatedness between crisis and female political leadership in Asia, and the traditional concept of power in modern Indonesia.