THE battle is Jiang Zemin's to lose. Until last week, a series of frantic - and largely successful - manoeuvres by the president and party general secretary seemed to show he had the succession sewn up.
And with the death of conservative patriarch Chen Yun, the incapacitation of Deng Xiaoping and the eclipse of other party elders, Mr Jiang was in a position to begin with a clean slate.
Then came a lull in the skirmishes. There were moments in March and April when the president seemed poised to turn a new page not only on his lacklustre record but the history of the Communist Party.
Mr Jiang, whose interest in Machiavellian power play dwarfs that in reform, however, has pulled back: tinkering too much with the system means it might collapse, leaving him buried in its ruins.
The upswing in Mr Jiang's political fortune has depended on his taming the scandal-plagued Beijing municipal machinery and his crusade against the greedy princeling-businessmen.
On both fronts, Mr Jiang's thunders have not been followed by thirst-quenching, wound-healing rain.