Policies? Who needs them?

The Economist
UK

Taking turns
Jun 21st 2007 DILI
From The Economist print edition

Policies? Who needs them?

UNDER the slogan “We liberated the country...now we liberate the people,” Xanana Gusmão is campaigning tirelessly for Timor-Leste's first parliamentary election on June 30th. Mr Gusmão, leader of the resistance to Indonesian rule, was president from independence in 2002 until last month. That post is now filled by José Ramos-Horta, a Nobel peace-prize winner for his work in the exiled resistance. In the presidential election he easily defeated the candidate of the ruling party, Fretilin. Mr Gusmão now wants to succeed his old ally as prime minister.

Reuters

Xanana (front) and José: job-swappersMembers of his brand-new party, the National Congress for the Reconstruction of Timor-Leste (CNRT), are feverishly drafting a party constitution and programme. Mr Gusmão may well win even without them. The CNRT's rallies attract huge crowds. But its campaign relies solely on Mr Gusmão's charisma and on berating Fretilin for incompetence and corruption. The CNRT, whose name recalls the resistance coalition Mr Gusmão led in the late 1990s, does not even try to offer policies.

Mr Gusmão can count on the support of other opposition parties and the sympathy of the influential Catholic Church. All are keen to see the back of Fretilin, led by Mari Alkatiri, and dominated by his “Maputo clique” of former exiles in Mozambique. It is also beset by factionalism. One “Reform” faction has even joined Mr Gusmão's campaign and is urging its followers to vote for the CNRT. But Fretilin is still the party with the largest registered membership. Observers expect a neck-and-neck race with the CNRT. Members of the 65-seat parliament will be elected by proportional representation for a five-year term. Of the 14 parties or coalitions taking part only two others are expected to win many seats. They are more likely to join a CNRT-led coalition.

Campaigning has been fairly peaceful. But violence may be triggered by last-minute moves made by the Fretilin-dominated parliament. It changed the electoral law so that votes will now be counted in district towns rather than at each polling station. Ostensibly to prevent village-level intimidation, the change will bring an increase in allegations of vote-rigging. Since a breakdown of security last year the UN has again had a big presence in Timor-Leste, along with Australian-led peacekeepers. Fretilin does not trust them to guarantee security, though the presidential election was peaceful.

The new government will face daunting problems: a poor, malnourished population with the world's highest fertility rate; high unemployment; gang warfare between groups of disaffected youths; some 100,000 displaced people in camps; and an army deserter holed up with his well-armed followers in the mountains.

Yet it also will have more than $1.2 billion in oil revenue squirreled away. Mr Ramos-Horta, who constitutionally has no control over economic decisions, has been promoting Timor-Leste as a free-trade zone. He also wants to subsidise rice- and coffee-farming and to distribute some of the oil money in cash handouts to the poor. This fiscal populism alarms some observers, such as the International Crisis Group, a think-tank, which expects a CNRT administration to be more consultative and transparent than Fretilin, but questions its “professional skills”. Whichever party wins, an ICG report gloomily concludes, the result will be a much less unified government that is unlikely to be any more effective than its predecessor.