KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 28 (Reuters) – Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali, the wife of Malaysia’s longest-serving Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and a public health advocate, died on Monday at the age of 100, the veteran leader’s office said.
• A funeral would be held on Monday evening, with Siti Hasmah to be buried at a Muslim cemetery in Malaysia’s administrative capital Putrajaya, Mahathir’s office said, without providing further details.
• Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim expressed his condolences on Siti Hasmah’s passing, and said she would be accorded a funeral with full state honours.
• “The nation will continue to remember her motherly figure and appreciate her contributions and services,” Anwar said in a statement.
• Her surviving husband Mahathir, 101, is often credited with modernising Malaysia. He served two stints as premier, totalling more than two decades.
• During his first tenure between 1981 and 2003, he oversaw a period of rapid industrial growth, turning Malaysia into one of Southeast Asia’s economic tigers.
• He became the country’s oldest prime minister in 2018 after coming out of retirement to topple the then-leader Najib Razak, who was involved in the multibillion-dollar 1MDB financial scandal. But his second stint in office ended in less than two years after his coalition collapsed in 2020 amid political infighting.
• Mahathir met Siti Hasmah while they were both attending medical school in Singapore in the late 1940s. The couple, who celebrated 70 years of marriage in August, raised seven children, including businessman Mokhzani, social activist Marina Mahathir, and politician Mukhriz Mahathir.
• A popular figure in her own right, Siti Hasmah was known for her unassuming personality and good humour, which contrasted with her husband’s blunt and acerbic style.
• She was the first woman to be appointed a medical officer in Mahathir’s home state of Kedah and as a political spouse, championed maternal health and family planning among other social causes.
• Mahathir once described her as the backbone to his success, and said he admired her determination to obtain a university degree, a rarity among ethnic Malay women at the time.
• “That, I think, reflects her strength of character,” he told CNN in 2018.
(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by David Stanway)
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