Candidates pledge to honor results as East Timor prepares for polls

ZAKKI HAKIM Associated Press Writer
Tuesday May 8th, 2007

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/article/4757

DILI, East Timor (AP) - East Timor goes to the polls Wednesday to pick a new president, with voters in the tiny nation to choose between Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta and an ex-fighter who spent years in the jungle battling Indonesian rule.

Ramos-Horta and Francisco "Lu-Olo" Guterres have both pledged to accept the results of the vote, which many in Asia's newest country hope will herald a new era of peace and stability following an often violent and politically divisive year.

"I will honor the result if Lu-Olo wins," said Ramos-Horta, 75, the acting prime minister. "My obligation is to stand behind him and support him, in whatever way I can."

The vote follows balloting last month that did not produce an outright winner.

Most analysts see Ramos-Horta, who fled East Timor during the occupation to became the international face of its freedom movement, as the favorite, especially since five losing candidates in the first round of voting are urging their supporters to back him.

But Guterres, 52, is backed by Fretilin, the political party of the nation's former armed resistance to Jakarta's rule. It traditionally has strong support across the country and a powerful party machine.

"I believe we will win Wednesday's election," said Guterres, adding he would "work with anyone who becomes president."

East Timor broke free from 24 years of often brutal Indonesian rule in 1999 following a violence-plagued independence referendum. The bloodshed only stopped with the arrival of international peacekeepers.

The country was administered by the United Nations until 2002, and descended into chaos last year after then-Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri fired a third of the army following a mutiny, provoking gunbattles between rival security forces that spiraled into gang warfare and looting.

At least 37 people were killed and some 155,000 fled their homes before the government collapsed. A 1,200-strong Australian-led peacekeeping force has since restored order and, along with a similar-sized contingent of U.N. police officers, now provides national security.

Supporters of rival candidates clashed in the run-up to the first vote, but campaigning this time around has been peaceful.

"We are satisfied that there's enough security in place to guarantee that East Timorese will vote in a safe manner on Wednesday," Finn Reske-Nielsen, deputy head of the UN mission in the country, said late Monday.

On Tuesday, around 100 gang members fought with machetes and rocks in a part of the capital prone to unrest, injuring one man in the head, said Antonio da Silva, the U.N. police chief in Dili. The crowd was dispersed with tear gas and the incident did not appear to be related to the elections, he said.

Ramos-Horta has pledged to make it easier for foreign investors to do business in the desperately poor nation, and said that the United Nations and international troops would be welcome to stay in the country for many years.

He won his Nobel Prize in 1996 for his campaign for East Timorese independence.

"Ramos-Horta is the best person for this position," said Joana Brandao-Carmo, who has been living in a refugee camp since last year's violence. "He can be the ears, the eyes and the mouth of poor people like me."

Guterres spent the Indonesian occupation in the jungles and mountains of the country, battling in a war that killed more than 100,000 people, either in fighting or from starvation and disease linked to the conflict.

By 1999, he was the most senior resistance leader in the country.

Fretilin is traditionally a left-leaning party, but Guterres has shown no sign he will steer the country away from the free-market course it has taken since independence.

"Even though he is not well educated like Ramos-Horta, he has a clear program for people like me," said 24-year-old Nelson de Sousa. "In his last 10 months as prime minister, Ramos-Horta has been unable to ensure the return of refugees to their homes. All he has given us is empty promises."

The post of president is largely ceremonial, but in June, the country of 900,000 people will vote for the more powerful post of prime minister, a job being sought by Ramos-Horta's close political ally, Xanana Gusmao, the popular outgoing president.

Julio Tomas Pinto, a political observer at the National University of East Timor, said the outcome depended on whether supporters of the candidates defeated in the first round heeded their calls to vote for Ramos-Horta.

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