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KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's king, Sultan
Salahuddin Abdul
Aziz Shah, one of nine traditional rulers who take turns in the figurehead role, died on Wednesday, an aide to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said. Mahathir has called a news conference later to announce the king's death to the nation. But first he made his way to the hospital where the 75-year-old monarch was admitted after returning from Singapore on Sunday, where he had a heart pacemaker implanted two months ago. "The press conference is to announce that the king is dead," the aide said. Hundreds of people gathered outside the hospital in a central Kuala Lumpur suburb as Mahathir and several opposition leaders called to pay their last respects to the king, who was active in the movement that won Malaysia independence from Britain in 1957. The death of a ruler is marked by a national day of mourning, and expectations that financial markets could be closed subdued trading in shares, with speculators closing out positions and the state run pension funds reducing activity. The Kuala Lumpur benchmark index was down 0.55 percent at 621.95 points in early afternoon trade. POPULAR The popular king, who was sultan of the central state of Selangor and the country's 11th constitutional monarch since independence, had been put on breathing and kidney support machines as his condition deteriorated. Concern over his condition heightened on Tuesday, when he was visited by family members including his fourth wife Queen Siti Aishah, who was 19 when he married her in 1990. Malaysia's hereditary rulers take turns every five years at being king under Malaysia's unique rotating monarchy, which has mainly symbolic powers. The council of rulers will now elect a successor to the monarch. Sultan Mizan Zainal Abidin of Terengganu had deputized during the late sultan's illness. Mahathir, who is also 75, curtailed the constitutional powers of the rulers during the early years of his own 20-year rule. Mahathir and the late king, who belonged to the same generation and were both active in the movement for independence from British colonial rule, had a good working relationship despite some clashes in the early 1980s and 1990s. |
