Ramos Horta leads Timor poll, despite Fretilin claim

The Age
Election officials count votes.
Lindsay Murdoch, Dili
April 11, 2007

THE voting trend in East Timor's presidential elections was unclear last night, with election officials indicating that Nobel peace prize winner Jose Ramos Horta was leading the early count, while Fretilin party leaders claimed their candidate had the lion's share of the vote.

Fretilin spokesman Filomino Aleixo said last night that Francisco "Lu-Olo" Guterres was leading with 40 per cent of the vote, after 214,000 ballots had been counted.

"This is our estimation — our candidate has the highest percentage," Mr Aleixo said.

However, early counting had indicated that Mr Guterres had polled poorly on Monday in many parts of the country, including some eastern towns and villages where Fretilin has won landslide votes in the past.

Throughout yesterday election officials said Mr Guterres was running third in the count, behind Mr Ramos Horta and Fernando "Lasama" de Araujo, head of the reformist youth-based Democratic Party.

It appeared Mr Guterres was struggling to win enough votes to contest a run-off election with Mr Ramos Horta, who has swept the polls in the capital, Dili.

Under East Timor's presidential voting system, if one candidate does not win 51 per cent of the vote in the first round, the two highest polling candidates must contest a run-off.

Mr Ramos Horta declined to comment on the vote until the result was formally announced, which may not be until Saturday.

"It seems that I have swept Dili and other places … I have not been updated fully," Mr Ramos Horta said. "I'm happy with the election which was a lesson in democracy and civility by the poor and illiterate. It serves as a lessen in civility for our leaders."

An election commission spokesman said Mr Ramos Horta was leading by a large margin in Dili after 20 per cent of the votes had been counted, but ballots from the strongholds of Mr Guterres in remote areas were only trickling in.

Fretilin officials claimed at a press conference in Dili that the election had been marred by voter manipulation, including the destruction of ballot papers.

Mr Aleixo said the party would complain that thousands of voters did not get the chance to vote because arrangements were not in place.

"We are preparing papers to submit formal complaints," he said.

Before the election, Fretilin's secretary-general, Mari Alkatiri, had refused even to consider the possibility that Mr Guterres would not win an outright majority in the first election organised by East Timor since the country achieved independence in 2002.

But at a school where both Mr Alkatiri and Mr Guterres voted on Monday, Mr Ramos Horta won 440 votes while Mr Guterres received only 191. At another Dili polling booth, Mr Ramos Horta received 2093 votes while Mr Guterres got only 144.

The result suggests that voters want to punish Fretilin for its handling of last year's violent upheaval, which left scores dead and forced more than 150,000 people from their homes, many of whom are still too afraid to return.

If the early official count proves accurate, it indicates voters are unhappy with a government whose policies failed to significantly improve the lives of most of East Timor's 1 million people, a third of whom often do not have enough to eat.

Many voters who queued in the sun for hours to vote said they wanted leaders who could put an end to the violence and provide them with jobs.

The result also indicates that voters may be willing to dump Fretilin candidates at parliamentary elections, to be held in June or July, to secure a fundamental change in the way the country is governed.

Mr Ramos Horta, who replaced Mr Alkatiri as prime minister during last year's violence, wants to see outgoing President Xanana Gusmao elected prime minister after forming a party to contest the parliamentary elections.

Both men have promised to spend Timor Sea oil and gas revenue on East Timor's poor instead of putting it in a bank account for future generations.

The Fretilin Government has put more than $US1 billion into a "petroleum fund", which is earning interest in a New York bank account.