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JAKARTA - Indonesia's former president Suharto showed signs of improvement Sunday but remained in critical condition, doctors said two days after he was hospitalised with heart, lung and kidney problems.
Suharto fell ill early last week at his home, which he has rarely left since mass protests and economic turmoil in 1998 ended his 32-year iron-grip and often brutal rule of Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation.
The 86-year-old was admitted to hospital on Friday where a team of specialist doctors was assembled to treat an array of ailments that saw him listed as being in a critical condition on Saturday and put on haemodialysis.
"There have been many good signs showing that his condition is improving," Marjo Soebiandono, who heads the presidential team of doctors, told AFP.
He said Suharto's blood pressure was improving and he could smile, though he remained weak. Asked whether the critical phase was over, Soebiandono said: "We cannot say that yet, but it is about 60 percent" over.
Women's empowerment minister Meutia Hatta told reporters later after visiting Suharto that he was speaking again and he had conducted his noon Islamic prayers lying on his bed, a method allowed for the ill.
And the former army general's half-brother, Sudwikatmono, told reporters that he believed Suharto would be able to leave hospital "in two or three days" and that he could now shake hands with his visitors.
Suharto's six children, current President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and a stream of other high-profile officials, including those prominent in his governments, have visited him since his admission to hospital.
The flurry of well-wishers demonstrates the influence Suharto still wields among Indonesia's elite, despite his ignominious fall as leader and allegations of corruption.
Kompas online newspaper said that in Suharto's home village of Kemusuk, in Central Java, his relatives and villagers were holding joint prayers for his health at the home of the ex-president's late brother.
Djoko Raharjo, who heads the Pertamina hospital where Suharto is being treated, declined to speculate on when Suharto's health might return to a normal level.
A press release read out by another doctor at the hospital advised that Suharto's heart and lung functions had improved and that liquid retention in his body was decreasing.
Doctors have also said the ex-president is suffering problems with his heart valves which would require an operation involving his pacemaker.
Suharto has been in and out of hospital for various ailments in recent years, including at least two strokes and stomach problems.
His poor health saw a criminal trial against him for corruption abandoned in 2006, despite him being accused of amassing billions of dollars for himself, his family and cronies while in power.
A civil suit is however currently being heard against him, with the government seeking 1.4 billion dollars in damages and returned assets allegedly accrued through a charitable foundation Suharto chaired while in power.
Last year, in a move critics saw as evidence of Suharto's lingering power, Indonesia's top court awarded him more than 100 million dollars in damages in a libel case he brought against Time magazine.
The magazine had claimed he had embezzled some 15 billion dollars while in power, a conservative estimate compared to graft watchdog Transparency International, which put the figure in 2004 at 35 billion dollars.
- AFP /ls
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