East Timor conducts peaceful election

Published: Thursday, 10 May, 2007, 01:36 PM Doha Time
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=148361&version=1&template_id=45&parent_id=25

DILI: East Timor held a peaceful presidential election yesterday, bolstering hopes that months of deadly political turmoil in one of the world’s newest countries could be near an end.

The orderly queues at polling stations across the former Portuguese colony were in sharp contrast to the violence of the past year, which saw foreign peacekeepers sent in to quell the unrest.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta was seen as the favourite ahead of the ruling party’s Francisco Lu-Olo Guterres after the two men came out on top in last month’s first round of voting.

Election officials said yesterday’s turnout appeared to be “very high” and vote counting could take up to two days.

Both candidates, who accused each other of bribing voters during campaigning, said they were confident of victory.

“Whatever the outcome, I will win,” said Ramos-Horta, the current prime minister, who won the Nobel Prize for his role in popularising the Timorese struggle for independence from neighbouring Indonesia after it invaded in 1975.

Guterres, a former resistance fighter and current leader of the ruling Fretilin party that Ramos-Horta founded and later left, echoed his words: “I am confident that I will be the winner.”

The presidency is a largely ceremonial position but could have an influence in helping to guide the nation out of more than a year of troubles. Unrest last year left 37 people dead and more than 100,000 displaced.

A split between rival factions of the military spiralled into street violence that led officials, including outgoing President Xanana Gusmao, to appeal for international troops and police to come in and restore order.

East Timor had also descended into violence after voting in a 1999 referendum for independence from Indonesia — something it won in 2002 after three years of administration by the United Nations.

Many Timorese are hoping the presidential election — the country’s first since independence — will help to unify the nation, which is one of the poorest on the planet.

“We hope that the next president, whoever that is, can get us out of this crisis, this conflict,” said George Lopes Belo, a 29-year-old sometime labourer voting at a primary school in the second city of Baucau.

Queues formed early at tightly guarded polling stations outside of the capital, but the mood was more subdued in Dili, where voters arrived at stations at scattered times and quickly cast their ballots.

“Reports so far indicate that the vote has proceeded without significant violence,” UN spokeswoman Allison Cooper said. “It’s been peaceful and we are hoping it will extend to the counting.”

A shortage of ballot papers was reported at eight polling stations, with a UN helicopter forced to rush papers to one remote location, officials said.

Turnout around the nation appeared to be “very high,” and could surpass the 81 percent reported in the first round, the Timorese Technical Secretariat for Election Administration said late yesterday.

“We have a high turnout for the second round,” administration director Tomas Cabral told a press conference.

Polling stations were being secured by 4,000 UN and local police, backed by about 1,000 troops from the Australian-led international security force sent in after last year’s violence.

The charismatic Gusmao, who is expected to run to replace Ramos-Horta in the more powerful post of prime minister in other elections next month, urged the East Timorese people to accept the result peacefully.

“We have to abide by the decision to uphold and develop democracy,” he said.
Gusmao said earlier this week that last year’s unrest severely set back efforts to rebuild the country.–AFP