Developments in Timor Leste’s 2012 presidential elections

I am in Dili for the 16th April Presidential run-off between Lu Olo and Ruak. On March 23rd in the first Presidential round, Fretilin’s Francisco Lu Olo Guterres gained the highest vote with 28.8 per cent, former Chief of the Defence Force Major General Taur Matan Ruak, Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao’s candidate secured 25.7 per cent, Independent President Jose Ramos-Horta coming third with 17.5 per cent and the Democrat Party’s Fernando Lasama de Araújo who is the President of the Parliament came fourth with 17.3 per cent of the vote. The remaining eight candidates had negligible votes.

The parliamentary elections at the end of June will elect MPs based on proportional representation in one national electorate of some 640,000 voters and on party lists. Since 2007, Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao with his party CNRT have lead the parliament in a majority of parties in the Alliance Majority government.

Timor-Leste has continuous national and international presidential election coverage. Australian media reports were often wrong, especially on the debate about Ruak’s policy for compulsory military service and Timor Leste’s President is which in not “largely ceremonial or symbolic”.

On polling day, voters queued before 7am in one booth in Dili, with the U.N. and police on hand, but no incidents. The local officials were most respectful to the people. The counting began in one school booth with 100 voters watching the votes being counted recorded one by one showing Timor-Leste electoral organisation’s goal of transparency. The non-compulsory vote was down to 78 per cent. The heavy rains and distances voters travelled to return to their local village where they are registered made it difficult. Timor Lester’s first fully run election was democratic and fair.

Too many media reports failed to highlight Lu Olo winning the most votes. He is likely to just win and be an excellent President. For balance Lu Olo’s campaigning and political presentation shows his Presidential quality. I watched a film/DVD featuring Lu Olo’s life as a resistance leader to 2001 - by Film Australia narrated by Cate Blanchett (‘East Timor Birth of a Nation’) with ‘Rosa’ Story’ (2012). Lu Olo is experienced as the Parliament’s first President and President of the responsible Fretilin opposition. The Fretilin vote was maintained, but disappointing for campaigners expecting more. Tim Anderson has offered a good explanation of why he believes Lu Olo will be President.

Taur Ruak is doing well in formerly Fretilin strongholds. Xanana Gusmao’s government has control of the state and incumbency and vastly increased spending by government tenders for millions in economic development but also distributing rice linked to voting (but all government’s do it, and the people need the rice).

Where will the votes of the losing candidates go in the deciding Presidential vote? President Ramos-Horta in another superb media performance gracefully bowed out. He thanked everyone. So is he without political power? He still dominates. I witnessed at their joint public press conference the next day with President Ramos-Horta and Lasama - third and fourth combining with 35 per cent of their votes and declaring their voters will decide the Presidency and government.

Some press commentators deliberately pushed an agenda by reporting that Horta/Lasama favoured Ruak/Xanana, they were against Fretilin, and they were joining together in the Democrat party for government – none of this has been confirmed. No hint then who they will support. Behind the scenes’ bargaining continues.

Ramos-Horta has said: “We appeal to the remaining two candidates for a clean election. Please no threats, no dark clouds of threats. This is not good for our country. We will be watching. We will not channel our votes to anyone who pressures, makes aggressive speeches.” Who says that President Ramos-Horta no longer has any power?

Some of the smaller parties the Timorese Social Democratic Association, former Fretilin Minister Rogerio Lobato (who ran fifth with 3.5 per cent), the three female first round candidates, plus Lurdes Bessa, the Vice-President of the Democratic Party (PD), now back Lu Olo.

Ramos-Horta is not in a party and is unlikely to be able to instruct all of his supporters to vote one way and the same applies to Lasama – the votes will divide up. Read Damien Kingsbury’s take on what may happen. As the PM picks his Ministers not in Parliament, Ramos-Horta may return again as the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Pat Walsh in an article on “Jose Ramos-Horta's Ian Thorpe moment” says “Ramos-Horta is a national treasure. His contribution to East Timor's liberation is legendary and as a non-partisan president since 2007 he has worked tirelessly to offset Timor's image as a near failed state by rebuilding unity, rebranding East Timor as a peaceful country and serving as a critical part of its checks and balances.” He is open to criticism including that he has contributed to a culture of impunity and has sometimes exceeded his powers and interfered in issues that are properly the business of government, not the presidency.

What differences there are in policy between Ruak and Lu Olo on the broad questions of development, oil and gas, food, health, education, infrastructure etc are difficult to discern.  Timor Leste’s political elites show considerable solidarity and long-term unity on these development questions for a Timor Leste way. But on a daily basis politics is fierce with contests on the details, how to tackle poverty and unemployment and illiteracy and poor health and the roads.

Fretilin attacks the government on the issue of waste and badly spending millions from the Petroleum Fund revenues, on corruption and not investing enough on health and education. Ruak plays it tough against Fretilin with accusations that they are divisive and that in Falantil Lu Olo was under his command.

One major election debate is instructive. Ruak - with Xanana on election banners both in military uniform (and fair enough) – promises compulsory military service for the youth. This has considerable popular support given 60 per cent youth unemployment and the U.N. leaving and security issues geo-politically such as US relations with China, the numbers of U.S. troops relocating at Darwin.

Those in favour of conscription argue that it would provide structure, discipline, life skills and future educational and job opportunities to the youth, that most 18 year olds and their parents want these. National service binds Timorese together in a nationalist experience, would reduce sukuism and regionalism and minimize the influence of gangs and crime.

Those against argue with around 40,000 18 year olds leaving school each year it is very expensive (food, fuel, uniforms, buildings, vehicles etc) and would create a massive national military infrastructure that is unhealthy and not in current Government army planning. Many prefer if there is to be compulsion, civilian jobs and training for building, labouring, civil service, health, education, and services and rural jobs.

Solidarity activists from overseas do not want to have struggled against the Indonesian military to end up with Timor Leste another militarised army-dominated nation.

Tim Anderson argues: “The 2012 elections…is a confrontation between two important themes: ‘mauberism’ and ‘big man’ culture…Fretilin’s better known ‘mauberism’ is an assertion of indigenous identity which stresses cultural pride and collective action…‘big man’ culture, a Melanesian concept which seems to also have roots in East Timorese culture, not least through the Liurai (kingly) tradition. The role of Xanana Gusmao in the post-independence scene is certainly the best example of this.

‘Big man’ culture means that local and political conflict are seen as resolvable by the intervention of a great personality, a hero or mediator. The ‘big man’ politician, like the clan leader or the Liurai, can be seen as a unifying force, expected to impose himself on the situation and then distribute benefits.

Political weaknesses of this approach might be immediately apparent. The language is populist (promising more than is delivered, or hiding other agendas), accountability is ignored and corrupt private networks tend to displace the public sphere and to restrict participation.

Mauberism, on the other hand, maintained the legitimacy of wider popular participation. The extreme ‘big man’ dependence of the CNRT, and of its wider government coalition the AMP (Parliamentary Majority Alliance), subsequently crippled any real collegial policy formation. For example, the 2010 ‘Strategic Development Plan’ was pretty much an edict from the office of the Prime Minister.

Fretilin puts the weakness of the CNRT/AMP more or less this way: if Xanana Gusmao falls under a bus, that’s the end of CNRT/AMP; if Fretilin leader Mari Alkatiri falls under a bus, Fretilin goes on.

Can ‘Big Man’ culture really help develop a nation? I think not. Surely there is more to be said for pooling talents and building some distinct Timorese solutions?”

Timor Leste’s President stands in strong contrast to Australia’s Constitutional parliamentary democracy and appointed Governor-General and Queen of England. The President is not ‘largely ceremonial’ as argued by Damian Kingsbury in the Dili Weekly article ‘The Role of the President’. Australian journalists often describe The Prime Ministerial position as ‘largely ceremonial and largely symbolic ’.

But arguably Ramos-Horta was not ‘largely a ceremonial President’. His political practice is powerful on many domestic and international issues that define the role of the President – no doubt he admires the French model. What political power he has exercised and continues to on a daily basis at home and in international relations, how he daily publicly comments, how he assists people with representations to the government and Parliament – all these actions marks the political boundaries for the President. Similarly in no way was Timor Lester’s first President Xanana Gusmao ‘largely ceremonial’. The politics of Presidential ceremonial practices international national and local for nation building, peace, healing and national unity are most significant

The democratic will of the people voting in two rounds for the President is important with the President having a democratic political legitimacy, not only a unifier, but seen as a countervailing power to the Parliament and the PM. The boundary is not just the literal words in the Constitution, but how the players exercise political determinations.