The sudden deluge which washed out the pre-election rally for Indonesia's ruling Golkar party may well be a portent for the June 7 poll.
After decades as the poodle of former President Suharto, the party may find it takes more than a recent apology for past misdeeds before it can re-invent itself.
Pressure for reform is too deep-rooted for the electorate to be satisfied with half-measures.
No matter how earnestly President Bacharuddin Habibie may seek to distance himself from the old regime, his history as Mr Suharto's protege overshadows all his efforts.
Too many of the old guard remain for the majority of the electorate to believe that the party genuinely has a new political agenda, or that it has any new answers to Indonesia's troubles.
Ethnic and sectarian violence in Aceh and Ambon, the problem of East Timor, and the wave of 'ninja' killings in East Java, make it clear that stability is a distant prospect, even without the soaring inflation and mass unemployment which have brought thousands to the brink of starvation, fuelled general unrest and the riots against the Chinese.