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Indonesia president Suharto's wife dies suddenly

JAKARTA: President Suharto's wife Tien died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 72 on Sunday, leaving the long-time ruler of Indonesia bereft of his closest friend and political adviser.

Siti Hartinah Suharto, who had been married to Suharto for 48 years, died at 5.10 a.m. (2210 GMT Saturday) in the Gatot Subroto military hospital in central Jakarta after complaining of breathing difficulties .

Her death comes as Suharto, 74, enters the crucial run-up period to next year's general elections. The poll will be followed in early 1998 by a presidential election at which Suharto was widely expected to stand for a record seventh term.

It was not known if these plans would change with the sudden death of his wife.

"The death will leave a very deep impact and he will be thinking about the future in the next few days," newspaper columnist Mochtar Buchori told Reuters.

"But those around him who depend on him will urge him to stay on. He will not hear other voices," Buchori said. "I think he will stay on."

State Secretary Murdiono told reporters that Suharto was in tears when he spoke to him some hours after Tien's death but the president was "resolute" despite the loss.

He later appeared on national television stoic and without emotion watching his wife's coffin, draped in the Indonesian national flag and chains of flowers, loaded onto an air force C-130 Hercules plane bound for the town of Solo in central Java.

The first lady will be buried in the family mausoleum near Solo, her hometown, on Monday.

Cabinet ministers and hundreds of senior officials and members of the public gathered at the president's residence in central Jakarta to pay their respects.

Many heard the news while preparing to celebrate the Moslem festival of sacrifice, Eid al-Adha, which fell on Sunday.

Tien's death will leave a large void in the president's immediate circle of friends and advisers.

There was speculation that his eldest daughter, Siti Hardijanti Rukmana, known as Tutut, could replace her mother as the president's closest adviser, one diplomat said.

"Siti Hartinah Suharto is the president's most trusted friend," the president's biographer O.G. Roeder wrote in 1969. Diplomats said Tien also gave valuable political insight and that Suharto was clearly dependent on her.

The president was rarely seen at any public function without his wife, although recently she had reduced her public appearances, perhaps because of bad health.

Tien had been with Suharto since his days as an independence fighter during the Indonesian war of revolution against the Dutch in the 1940s. They had six children.

A descendant of Javanese royalty and the daughter of a district officer in the Dutch colonial administration, Tien married Suharto, a farmer's son who was then an officer in the army, on December 26, 1947.

During the revolution years Tien, like many women of her generation, was a volunteer with the Indonesian Red Cross and the Indonesian Women's Legion.

Her community work increased after Suharto took over the presidency in 1966. It continued through a number of charitable foundations, although there were accusations the institutions were used as fronts to gather commissions on projects.

Suharto denied the allegations in December last year. He said although his wife had initiated several projects, it did not mean she had a lot of money.

"It is not her own money...she asked people who shared her ideas (to undertake them)...and they did," he said.-Reuter