Key factors in the East Timor parliamentary elections

Second, another element of winning any democratic election is the ability of political leaders to demonstrate its quality leadership in convincing their voters. According to Denis Leonard in his article on Quality Leadershipthe term is defined by the traits, qualities and behaviors of a leader. It is about entrusting, motivating, empowering and guiding its members to take responsibility and steer the group toward achieving its common objectives.

The author further argued that in order to assume an effective leadership in the community, leaders must constantly exercise self-examination, receive feedback, willing to learn and correct their mistakes.

Empowering people to take effective role in decision making means employing bottom approach whereby people's opinions are weighed up carefully before decisions are taken.

In the context of East-Timor, quality leadership is one of the important elements that is somehow lacking within some major political parties. Some political parties tend to use top down approach in addressing concerns raised by supporters at the community levels.

The application of such approach is based on the assumption that voter education is still low in the country side. Consequently it is the responsibility of political leaders to take crucial role in educating voters. Though this approach is well accepted in most situations, it often leads to discouraging people from expressing their views on certain issues.

When people feel that they are being marginalized from some important decision making, they will quickly change their political allegiance to other political parties. This attitude shift has been widely observed in recent political campaign in East Timor where many party loyalists declared their allegiance either to the CNRT party or Fretilín party. They certainly believe that by shifting their allegiance to other political parties will provide them with greater opportunity to influence decision making that directly affects their everyday lives.

In brief, it can be argued that acquiring political adaptability and quality leadership is two critical components in influencing voters on the July 7^th elections. What matters most in the elections is not on how it is conducted rather on how political leaders are able to deliver their promises after the elections. Though presenting good political manifesto to the voters is important, political parties would fail to convinced voters unless they listen to the concerns of the community and adopt right policy to thoroughly address those concerns if elected. Political parties that remain committed to delivering those promises will gain more trusts from voters than those who fail to deliver their campaign promises.