JAKARTA, Indonesia — Former dictator Suharto has improved and has a good chance of recovering, doctors said Saturday.
“We’re optimistic,” Dr. Marjo Subiandono told reporters during a briefing.
The 86-year-old has been in the hospital for more than two weeks, suffering from multiple organ failure, pneumonia and sepsis, a potentially lethal blood infection. He received a blood transfusion and dialysis for failing kidneys. Doctors said privately he had been near death.
He is still attached to a ventilator, but his heart and lung capacity have improved, and his sepsis also is receding, Subiandono said.
Suharto, whose 32-year regime was widely regarded as one of the 20th century’s most brutal and corrupt, was driven from office a decade ago amid massive protests and nationwide riots, opening the way for democracy in this predominantly Muslim nation of 235 million people.
Saturday afternoon, police used force to break up a protest staged by about 100 students and activists who had gathered across the street from the hospital, calling for Suharto to be tried in court.
