Troubled East Timor to vote for new president

EAST TIMOR: A low-key former resistance fighter and a high-profile Nobel laureate are strong contenders for the presidency in East Timor, where voters will cast ballots Monday in a poll shadowed by violence.

It will be the first election for the largely ceremonial post of president since the country declared independence in 2002 after a bloody separation from neighbouring Indonesia three years earlier.

Current prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta, 57, is up against the powerful Fretilin party’s chairman Fransisco Guterres, 52, a former guerrilla who is popularly known as Lu Olo.

A third candidate, Fernando “Lasama” De Araujo, the chairman of the opposition Democrat Party, also stands a chance of winning the contest, said Damien Kingsbury of Australia’s Deakin University.

“Ramos-Horta had a lot of popular support up to two weeks ago. But his support has fallen,” Kingsbury said, forecasting a run-off. “It is a three-way contest.”

Five other candidates are also vying for the presidency after a largely peaceful two-week campaign set to end on Friday. More than 520,000 people are registered to vote, and results should be available later next week.

The charismatic Xanana Gusmao, who became the former Portuguese colony’s first president in a vote just prior to formal independence, is not seeking re-election.

The election comes in an atmosphere of tension and uncertainty after violence last year sparked the worst crisis in the impoverished nation’s short history.

“Political elites say that an election can resolve the situation. But I do not trust this. A new president will not solve the problems,” said Jose Luis de Oliveira, of the human rights group Yayasan HAK.

Dili, Thursday, AFP