John Aglionby – The powerful speaker of Indonesia's parliament has called for legal proceedings to be dropped against Suharto, the 86-year-old former dictator who is in critical condition in hospital suffering from anaemia and low blood pressure.
Agung Laksono, a senior member of Golkar, the party Mr Suharto created in the 1960s as the political vehicle for his authoritarian rule, said the gesture should be made for "humanitarian reasons" because "he has repeatedly fallen ill and been hospitalised several times".
As memories fade of Mr Suharto's often-brutal rule, Mr Laksono's demand reflects a distinct turn in public sentiment towards the man accused by Transparency International of being the world's greatest kleptocrat, with alleged ill-gotten gains of up to Dollars 35bn (Euros 24bn, Pounds 18bn) while in office. He was toppled in May 1998 amid the Asian financial crisis and widespread unrest after 32 years in power.
A procession of political leaders, headed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who became a senior general near the end of the Suharto regime, visited the ailing leader on Saturday morning. Mr Yudhoyono called for the nation to pray for Mr Suharto's rapid recovery.
Vice-president Jusuf Kalla, Golkar chairman, said the government would do everything it could for Mr Suharto. "He is a five-star general who must be respected," he said. "Since he was also a national leader... everything we do must be appropriate to that."
Megawati Sukarnoputri and Abdurrahman Wahid, Mr Yudhoyono's predecessors as president and one-time vehement critics of Mr Suharto, have also spoken charitably of him, with Mr Wahid appearing at Mr Suharto's bedside.
Doctors treating Mr Suharto said yesterday that his health was stabilising after blood transfusions and the installation of a second pacemaker but that his condition remained critical. Mr Suharto has suffered myriad medical problems, including two strokes, since 1998.
He was declared unfit in 2000 to stand trial for criminal corruption but last year the government launched a Dollars 1.54bn civil suit against him and one of his foundations for allegedly siphoning off Dollars 440m in state assets. It was this action to which Mr Laksono was referring. Under Indonesian law, it can continue against Mr Suharto's heirs after he dies.
Deferential feelings towards Mr Suharto are far from universal.
Sidney Jones, an Indonesia expert with the International Crisis Group think-tank, likened the situation to how Americans treated disgraced former President Richard Nixon before his death.
"When an old man is dying, this is to be expected," she said. "You give a dying person the benefit of the doubt but I don't think it will reflect how he'll be viewed six months or a year after his death."
Large sections of Indonesian society have not, however, forgotten Mr Suharto's dark side. After a claimed coup attempt by leftists, he seized power in 1965 and the resulting suppression effort saw thousands killed. He is also remembered for brutalities during the 24-year occupation of East Timor.
When he won Dollars 105m last year in a surprising legal victory against Time, the US magazine, in a defamation case over his family's alleged corrupt gains, there was a public outcry.
Bambang Haryimurti, the editor of Tempo, an Indonesian news magazine closed for several years during the Suharto regime, believes most Indonesians no longer care. "When he dies, most will just breathe a sigh of relief," he said.