Voters in East Timor yesterday lined up to cast their vote in the country’s fourth parliamentary elections since independence in a ballot where campaigning has focused on development and jobs in Asia’s youngest democracy.
More than 700,000 East Timorese are registered to vote in the country that is home to 1.2 million people.
More than 20 political parties are vying for 65 seats in parliament as frustration grows over the government’s failure to use the wealth generated by oil and gas sales to support development and create jobs.
Photo: AFP
The parliamentary election are to determine the country’s prime minister. The official results of the election are expected to be announced by Aug. 6, although preliminary results should come much earlier.
“I hope the party that wins this election will build East Timor to be better than before,” said Maria Magdalena, 28, after casting her vote for the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, or Fretilin, one of the parties in a coalition backing the government.
“I just want everything to run smoothly, peacefully and that there be no conflict in this country,” she added.
East Timorese in March picked former independence fighter Francisco “Lu Olo” Guterres to be its next president in a largely peaceful election.
Both the presidential and parliamentary elections are the first since the UN ended its peacekeeping operations at the end of 2012.
The former Portuguese colony was invaded by neighboring Indonesia in 1975. An often-violent 24-year resistance movement took East Timor to independence in 2002 and many of its key figures still feature prominently in running the country.
Former East Timorese president Xanana Gusmao, another former independence fighter who was also the country’s first president after independence, and his National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT) party are seen as the front-runners in yesterday vote. CNRT is also part of the governing coalition.
“After a tiring month, I believe that we will win. If we win, we will do our best to save the nation and this country,” he told reporters before casting his vote.
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