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East Timor election: mass turnout amid reported threats
Sydney Morning Herald - July 22, 2017
After 24 years of brutal Indonesian occupation, Timorese have come to take their elections seriously, and turned out en-masse again at polling booths across the country.
Polling monitors expect the turnout to be more than 70 per cent in the country where voting is not compulsory.
In remote areas some voters arrived at polling stations on ponies and in boats after a colourful and largely violence-free campaigning.
Mari Alkatiri, the leader of Fretilin, one of the largest parties, expressed confidence after voting in the Farol neighbourhood in Dili. "My hope is victory," he told reporters, while praising the maturity shown by voters during campaigning.
But Mr Alkatiri said two of his nephews were attacked on Friday night after leaving a dinner party in Dili.
"There are certain emotions, not leadership, there are certain leaders who can control their followers and others who may not be able to do it," he said. The men were treated in hospital.
Late on Friday Fretilin issued a statement saying its supporters and sympathisers in several villages in Baucau, the country's second largest town, had been told that unless they voted "for certain political parties" their houses would be ransacked and they would be killed.
"Fretilin also calls on the electoral observers – national and international – to take notice of this situation," said the party's deputy secretary Jose Reis. The newly established People's Liberation Party denied any of its supporters had made threats.
More than 750,000 voters have registered to vote in the election that is being contested by 21 parties.
Analysts say Fretilin and the National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT), the party headed by former president and prime minister Xanana Gusmao, are likely win the largest number of votes. The parties have been in a government of national unity since 2015.
Under East Timor's system no party is likely to be able form government alone. "The biggest issues in the minds of East Timorese are poverty, corruption and unemployment," said Julio Tomas Pinto, a professor in politics at the National University of Timor-Leste.
The country faces declining income from oil and gas fields while doubt remains about the future of a gas field called Greater Sunrise in the Timor Sea that is the subject of international conciliation with Australia.
Observers say unless the country can get new sources of revenue from oil and gas it could be bankrupt within a decade.
Meanwhile, Timorese media reported that a Fretilin MP punched a rival near a polling station in Ermera, a coffee growing district 30 south-west of Dili. Police are investigating.
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