Opposition party wins in E. Timor

DILI, East Timor — East Timor’s opposition party won Sunday’s parliamentary election, meaning independence fighter Xanana Gusmao is likely to return as prime minister in Asia’s youngest democracy.

The final vote count released by the National Elections Commission on Tuesday showed Gusmao’s National Congress of the Reconstruction of East Timor, known as CNRT, won 41% of the votes and gained 31 seats out of 65 in the National Parliament.

That is just short of the 33 needed for an outright majority, and Gusmao will have to join at least one other party in a coalition to form a government.

Gusmao, 76, an icon of the country’s independence struggle from Indonesian occupation, became the nation’s first president between 2002 and 2007 and served as prime minister between 2007 and 2015.

The CNRT’s victory followed a successful presidential campaign in 2022 in which its candidate, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jose Ramos-Horta, returned to office.

The ruling Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, or Fretilin, received 25% of the votes and 19 seats. It promised to accept the election outcome.

The Democratic Party won six seats, the rural-based Khunto Party won five seats and the People’s Liberation Party won four seats.

A total of 17 parties ran in the election.

They were required to have a woman in at least every third position in their party list, and seats were allocated for those with an electoral threshold of 4%.

“I’m happy that we are going to respond to people’s concerns and anxiety of national construction that has always been defined in the strategic development plan that has not been carried out in the last six years,” Gusmao told a news conference after the final results were released by the electoral commission.

He pledged to allow the development of the Greater Sunrise oil and gas project which aims to tap trillions of cubic feet of natural gas that could give East Timor 70% of the revenues if the gas is piped to East Timor and 80% if the gas is piped to Australia.

“Independence doesn’t mean only having [ a] flag, president, governor and parliament, but it means people [ are] able to get benefits from independence in terms of the economy,” he said.