Downer on East Timor election

ABC Transcripts
SHOW: AM 8:04 AM AEST ABC

April 9, 2007 Monday

REPORTERS: Peter Cave

PETER CAVE: Well to discuss today's East Timor presidential election I'm joined by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer:

(to Alexander Downer) Mr Downer, welcome to AM

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Thank you.

PETER CAVE: How important is the successful conduct of today's election to the short-term stability of East Timor and in the lead up to the parliamentary elections.

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Well it is important - our expectations is that it's likely to be a reasonably quiet day, that's the history of elections in East Timor. There has been a reasonably quiet election period.

There was some rioting on, I think it was the 4th of April and there have been other incidents from time to time, but it hasn't been as bad as we'd feared. So we hope that today will be a pretty quite polling day in terms of security, I think that's likely to be the case. Of course there are a lot of people on the ground providing that security.

PETER CAVE: There is a possibility of course that no candidate will receive enough votes in their own right today, which will mean going on to another election. There are also claims of vote intimidation, what do you think about those claims?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Well, we'll have to wait and see what the observers of the election say. We have an observer team led by Dave Tollner, the Member for Solomon.

Dave will provide a report for us. There are a whole lot of other observer teams from the UN, the united ... the European Union and so on. So, at this stage I don't think that intimidation is likely to have a substantial effect on any result but we really have to just and wait and see read the reports when they're produced.

But as you say, this is the first round unless one of the candidates gets more than 50 per cent of the vote, there will be another ballot on the 9th of May. So, I think that's a more likely next step, that there will be a further ... a further ballot between the leading two candidates.

PETER CAVE: You mentioned the United Nations' involvement. One of their teams has criticised the arrangements for the election, raising the possibility I suppose that it may not certify the result.

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Well, I haven't heard that to be frank. The reports we've had from our embassy are that the processes have moved ahead well, reasonably well.

Look, it hasn't been perfect and it's not likely to be in that sort of environment, it's not going to be as smooth running as you'd expect an Australian election to be in administrative terms. But the reports I've had are that it's been moving ahead reasonably well.

But as I say, we will have to wait until all of the analysis is done by the various observers, including the United Nations before we have a full picture of what's happened in every single polling area.

PETER CAVE: Jose Ramos Horta has said if he wins this election, he'll ask for Australian troops to stay on at least until the end of next year. Indeed, he said in one comment that he wanted them to stay on for as many years as is possible, is that realistic?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Well look, we'll have to wait and see. I mean, at this stage our thinking is that we'll continue to leave this international force in East Timor. But beyond the parliamentary elections - the date for the parliamentary elections hasn't been set but our expectation is that it will be in June or July.

That's likely to be a reasonably unstable period leading up to those parliamentary elections and as Anne Barker was saying in your introduction, it's in a way, a more important election so there'll be more tension flowing from that.

After the election they'll have another look. There's a possibility in time that the military side of the peacekeeping operation in East Timor could come under the control of the United Nations.

That's something we'll have a look at, the United Nations will have a look at based on the year after the parliamentary elections have taken place. But at this stage, we're making no predictions about how long the troops will stay.

PETER CAVE: Mr Downer, Anne Barker also referred to the possibility of trouble if Fretilin didn't accept a result. Are you getting reports that there could be trouble if Fretilin does not win?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Look, I haven't heard it put as starkly as that, and I think there is a risk that some people in different political parties will be unhappy with the result to the extent that they might go out on the street. I'm afraid that's a real risk in East Timor.

PETER CAVE: Mr Downer, thank you for joining us this morning.

ALEXANDER DOWNER: A pleasure.