Jakarta: Sixteen years after being deposed in disgrace, the family of former president Suharto is making a political comeback which could take one of its scions all the way to Indonesia’s presidential palace.

If the hopes of many are realised, Suharto’s second daughter, Siti Hediati Harijadi, universally known as Titiek, will remarry her ex-husband, presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, that he will win next week’s election and she will become the nation’s first lady.

Siti Hediati Harijadi, known as Titiek, daughter of late Indonesian dictator Suharto and ex-wife of presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto greets the crowd during a rally for Subianto in Jakarta in June. Credit:AFP

It’s a popular idea among Prabowo’s hardline Muslim supporters, who fear a man without a wife is somehow deficient.

But even in Indonesia’s culture of denial about its past, a Suharto in the palace again would be extraordinary, especially at the side of a candidate promising to end corruption.