Day: March 19, 2022

DILI, EAST TIMOR — Polls have closed in East Timor after Asia’s youngest nation held its fifth presidential election since independence on Saturday, with political stability and economic security at the forefront of voters’ minds.

The 16 presidential hopefuls include former resistance fighter and incumbent President Francisco “Lu Olo” Guterres as well as independence figure and Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta and a former Catholic priest.

While the nation’s independence figures still dominate the field, for the first time there are also four female candidates, including Deputy Prime Minister Armanda Berta Dos Santos.

“We must choose a new generation so that we can build this country,” said Jorge Mendonca Soares, 42, after queuing patiently to vote at a polling booth in the capital of Dili on Saturday morning.

A recent poll by the national university showed that Ramos-Horta, 72, former defense forces commander Lere Anan Timur, and the incumbent Guterres were the favorites.

At the time polls closed at 0600 GMT, some would-be voters in the capital had been unable to cast ballots due to residency requirements.

“Many cannot vote because they are not registered in the data as residents from outside the city of Dili,” João Ximenes, head of a voting station in Comoro, told Reuters. He added that two people had been arrested after a protest erupted at the polling station as a result.

Officials said it was not immediately clear how many people were affected by the rule.

Early indications of the frontrunners in the election are expected to emerge late on Saturday. If no candidate wins an outright majority, the vote will proceed to a run-off on April 19 between the top two contenders.

Approaching twenty years since independence after the end of a brutal occupation by Indonesia, East Timor has for long spells struggled with political instability.

After elections in 2018, Guterres refused to swear in some ministers from the National Congress of the Reconstruction of East Timor (CNRT), a political party led by former Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao.

The ensuing political stalemate continues to this day.

Ramos-Horta, who is backed by Xanana’s CNRT party, said earlier this week he was running because he felt the current president had “exceeded his powers.”

Guterres told reporters after voting on Saturday: “Whoever runs must be ready to win and be ready to lose … But I want to say I will win.”

In East Timor’s political system, the president appoints a government and has the power to veto ministers or dissolve parliament.

Economic diversification was a major issue in the election, as worries mount over the country’s heavy dependence on dwindling supplies of oil and gas.

The role of young voters was also key, with an estimated 20% of voters reaching the voting age of 17 in the past five years and casting their ballots for the first time.

First-time voter Marco de Jesus, 17, said he felt nervous but relaxed after help from polling staff.

“I feel proud to have carried out my function as a voter,” he said from outside a polling station on Dili’s waterfront.

“I hope my choice can bring positive and useful change.”

Source: Voice of America

DILI, EAST TIMOR — Vote counting was under way in East Timor’s presidential elections Saturday with two former fighters for independence — one current and one former president — considered to be the front-runners, each accusing the other of causing a yearslong political paralysis.

Ahead of the election day, former President Jose Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, had a lead over incumbent Francisco “Lu Olo” Guterres in an opinion survey. Four women were among 13 other candidates, the highest number of women taking part in the country’s fifth election since independence.

Official results were not expected until Thursday.

“I am confident that I will win the election again,” Guterres told reporters after casting his vote in Dili, the capital. “I call on people to accept whatever the result and I am ready to work with whoever wins this election.”

Guterres, 67, is from the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor party, known by its local acronym Fretilin. Ramos-Horta, 72, is backed by the rival National Congress of the Reconstruction of East Timor, known as CNRT, a party led by former Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, also an ex-resistance leader who remains influential.

More than 835,000 of the country’s 1.3 million people were registered to vote. The winner will take the oath of office May 20, the 20th anniversary of East Timor’s independence from Indonesia, which invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975.

If none of the candidates secures more than 50% of the votes in the first round, a runoff between the two top vote-getters is scheduled for April 19.

Tensions between Fretilin and CNRT, the two largest parties, led to the resignation of Prime Minister Taur Matan Ruak in February 2020 after the government repeatedly failed to pass a budget.

Ruak agreed to stay on until a new government is formed and to oversee the battle against the coronavirus pandemic with a $250 million war chest. His government has operated without an annual budget and has relied on monthly injections from its sovereign fund savings, called the Petroleum Fund.

Guterres refused to swear in nine people nominated by CNRT as Cabinet ministers in 2018. CNRT has accused Guterres and Fretilin of acting unconstitutionally and illegally seizing the post of speaker of parliament.

Fretilin said that Ramos-Horta is unfit to be president, accusing him of causing a crisis as prime minister in 2006, when dozens were killed as political rivalries turned into open conflict on the streets of Dili.

A clash between Fretilin and CNRT supporters also broke out in 2018, leaving more than a dozen injured and cars torched.

Ramos-Horta, speaking to the media while casting his vote, said the benefits of his party’s development plans would be spread more widely and vowed to work closely with Gusmao to implement them.

“We have voted based on our own wish for a new president who is able to maintain stability, to develop our economy and to change the current situation,” Ramos-Horta said.

East Timor’s transition to a democracy has been rocky, with leaders battling massive poverty, unemployment and corruption. The nation continues to recover from the bloody break for independence two decades ago, with an economy reliant on dwindling offshore oil revenues and bitter factional politics.

Joaquim Fonseca, a political analyst at RENETIL, a youth organization established during Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor, said that no single party would be able to form a government on its own, making coalitions necessary.

“This remains a challenge for both of the candidates,” said Fonseca, who is also East Timor’s former ambassador to the U.K. “At this point, there is no absolute certainty that either of the candidates will bring the desired changes.”

The U.N. estimates that nearly half of East Timor’s population lives below the extreme poverty line of $1.90 a day and half of the children younger than 5 suffer physical and mental stunting as a result of malnutrition.

“I do hope the winning president will look after the clean water, the roads to villages and health facilities,” said Lucio Cardozo, a Dili resident.

Oil revenues, which finance more than 90% of government spending, are rapidly dwindling and the country’s nearly $19 billion sovereign wealth fund could be empty within a decade as the government’s annual withdrawals exceed its investment returns, according to La’o Hamutuk, an East Timorese research institute.

While more than 30% of the population is illiterate, the wealthiest earn more than 42% of the national income and the bottom half take only about 16%, said Dinna Prapto Raharja, an international relations analyst and the founder of Synergy Policies, an independent consulting firm based in Jakarta.

“This is a big gap that’s not easy to bridge unless there is a fundamental governance change from whoever wins the 2022 election,” she said. “The elite may need to discuss different models of sharing power.”

Source: Voice of America