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East Timor government set for restructure as PM Gusmao likely to announce retirement
ABC Radio Australia - January 29, 2015
Mr Gusmao flagged major government changes in his Christmas message late last year as part of a plan to pave the way for new leaders to emerge in East Timor. This week all 55 members of the government were informed of whether they could stay in the team or whether Mr Gusmao wanted them to resign.
Professor Damien Kingsbury from Deakin University said the reshuffle was significant. He said it allowed the prime minister to remove a number of government members being investigated for alleged corruption and also signaled Mr Gusmao was preparing to retire.
"Xanana Gusmao hopes to set up a cabinet that will see out his own retirement from the position of prime minister," Mr Kingsbury said. Mr Gusmao had been expected to retire last year but delayed the move.
There were suggestions some members of the opposition Fretilin party could be brought in to replace some of the departing government members. Fretilin's leaders told the ABC it was too early to know the final make up of the government and whether members of its party would be part of it.
A spokesman for East Timor's government said the details about who was in and who was out of the restructured government would be made public next week.
Since independence, East Timor's leadership has been dominated by figures from what's known as the Generation of 1975. They include figures such as Xanana Gusmao and the former president Jose Ramos-Horta who helped in the struggle for independence from Indonesia either as military resistance leaders or from abroad.
The reshaped government would have to deal with major challenges including widespread poverty, poor education and East Timor's heavy reliance on its oil revenues.
A new era for East Timor politics
Mr Kingsbury said while not everybody liked Mr Gusmao, the majority of Timorese people respected him.
"It's always going to be difficult for Xanana Gusmao to retire because he's seen as such a stabilising figure," Mr Kingsbury said. "But it is important for him and others of his generation to make way for younger political actors to come through and to take the helm of the state for the future."
But even if Mr Gusmao announced his retirement soon, Mr Kingsbury said Mr Gusmao was unlikely to step away entirely. "It's quite possible that Xanana would take a senior ministerial role, a sort of watching brief, just to make sure that the transition goes smoothly and that there aren't any moves towards instability," he said.
Mr Kingsbury said all of those people named as possible successors were likely to have similar approaches to the country's relationship with Australia. In recent years that relationship has been tested, particularly by allegations Australia spied on East Timor during negotiations over a 2006 gas treaty.
"I think that there would be a tendency to want to stabilise the relationship and to try to ensure that the positives of the relationship, in particular things like the aid program, the friendship groups and military training remain as the bedrock of the relationship," Mr Kingsbury said.
He said the possible successors were unlikely to upset relations. "I don't think any are quite as confident as Xanana in throwing a cat amongst the pigeons from time to time in the way that he has done," he said.
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