‘AusTimorFN’ Facilitators Inc is pleased to announce Timor-Leste’s election dates for 2012. This will allow you to consider which part of the electoral process it might be most appropriate for you to attend and to make arrangements to that effect.

The Presidential election is scheduled for Saturday 17 March 2012. If no candidate receives above 50 per cent of the vote, a second round election for the two highest polling candidates is scheduled for Saturday 14 April.

The information we have at this stage is that the Timor-Leste Parliamentary elections are scheduled for Friday 29 June 2012.

It is important to note that, for these elections, votes will be counted at the polling booths on-site, so that staying (or returning) for the vote counting process will be as important as the actual vote itself.

When considering your travel plans for Timor-Leste’s elections, please allow sufficient time to register in Dili and attend a briefing session before heading to your preferred polling site. You will also need to allow time to return to Dili and submitting a written report on the polling process at your polling site ahead of departing.

We are very pleased that you have indicated an interest in participating as observers to Timor-Leste’s election process and look forward to working with you there.
If you have not already done so, please ensure you have sent us your Registration form, paid the registration fee, signed the agreement to be accredited as an AusTimorFN observer.

More information on the procedures in Timor-Leste will be posted here soon.

In friendship,

Rae

The Registration form and Observer Agreement for Observers to the 2012 elections is now available under ‘News’ on this web site.

To Prospective Election Observers

The Australia Timor-Leste Friendship Network has a had an enthusiastic response to the first call for Voluntary Friendship Observers for 2012. Many of you have asked that we provide some initial information about the process of elections. As there has not been much public written information we have prepared the following. When more information becomes available we will send it to you.

I am pleased to let you know that Professor Damien Kingsbury will again assist with the Observer Missions by Co-ordinating the Missions in-country.

In friendship
Rae

Rae M Kingsbury (nee Perry)
Convenor, Australia Timor-Leste Friendship Network & Friends of Baucau Inc
mobile phone: (+61) 0448 946 483
www.austimorfn.com
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Election Notes 1:
Presidential & Parliamentary

There are two sets of elections in Timor-Leste in 2012. The dates and some of the details have not yet been finalised, due to the electoral law not yet being passed by the Timor-Leste parliament. The first round of the Presidential election is expected to be held around March, but in theory as early as late February.

If no candidate receives an outright majority, there will be a second round of elections between the two leading candidates. The second round of presidential elections should be held in between four to six weeks after the first round.
At this stage, the incumbent president, Jose Ramos-Horta, has indicated that he may not stand for re-election. While some have viewed his reluctance to re-contest the presidency as a bid to be called to re-content by public acclamation, there are also a number of legitimate reasons why he may not do so. The other likely candidates for the presidency include Fretilin’s Francisco ‘Lu-Olo’ Guterres and the Democratic Party’s Fernando ‘Lasama’ de Araujo. Candidates from other parties are also expected to contest the presidential elections, if with less likelihood of success.

The importance of the presidential elections is two-fold. In the first instance, the president has an important symbolic role in Timorese public life, being seen to be a figure of unity. The president also determines who can form government in the parliament, based on constitutional criteria. Beyond this and emergency situations, the president does not exercise executive authority in Timor-Leste.

The second importance of the presidential elections is that the vote for presidential candidates gives a reasonably clear idea of voting intentions for the forthcoming parliamentary elections. In a country that does not have public opinion polling, this is the strongest and indeed only reliable guide to parliamentary voting intentions.

As with the presidential election, no date has yet been set for the parliamentary elections. However, it is likely they will be held in June 2012.

At this stage, it is unlikely that either of the two largest parties, Fretilin and the CNRT, will command a majority in their own right and both will therefore be obliged to seek alliances with other parties in order to form a working majority in the parliament.

The security environment in Timor-Leste ahead of the 2012 elections is expected to remain stable. There has been no political violence or other widespread social unrest in Timor-Leste since 2008 and all political leaders are keen to ensure the polls are undertaken in an atmosphere of calm and order.

However, in order to ensure that calm and order prevails, and to act as a security backdrop, the UN police and the Australian-led International Stabilisation Force will remain in Timor-Leste until well after the elections. The ISF is expected to withdraw from Timor-Leste in December 2012.

Since 1999 Election Observers have previously been welcomed and well respected in Timor-Leste, for their contribution to ensuring that the electoral process is not only free and fair but is seen to be so, both domestically and internationally. Despite Timor-Leste’s difficulties in 2006, the 2012 elections mark its third round of democratic elections and are a strong indicator of democratic consolidation in this previously troubled country. Our contribution to the election process, as observers is, and is seen to be, important to its success.

I look forward to working with you in this process.

Rae Kingsbury
+61 0448946483

Rae M Kingsbury (nee Perry)
Convenor: Australia Timor-Leste Friendship Network and Facilitators

raemerlynperry@gmail.com
www.austimorfn.com
(+61) 0448 946 483

The President of Timor-Leste, HE Jose Ramos-Horta and Rae Kingsbury

Maubisse, Timor-Leste
27 & 28 August 2010

The Australia Timor-Leste Friendship movement has committed itself to continuing the Friendship process for the next ten years. At the end of the first ten years of the Australia Timor-Leste Friendship movement, each of the Friendship groups attending the ‘Strengthening Friendship: People to People’ conference held in Maubisse over 27-28 August, recommitted themselves to a further ten years of Friendship with the people of Timor-Leste.

The Australian Friends of Timor-Leste at the conference also unanimously voted in favor of the Australia Timor-Leste Friendship Network (AusTimorFN) establishing a website in cooperation with State Administration to share information between Friends in Timor-Leste and Friends in Australia. The conference brought together more than 100 people from Friendship groups in Australia and Timor-Leste for what was Timor-Leste’s largest international conference outside Dili.

Addressing the conference, the President of Timor-Leste, HE Jose Ramos-Horta, highlighted the role played by the Friendship movement in underpinning relations between Timor-Leste and Australia. President Ramos-Horta said: ‘No country in the world has committed more than Australia to Timor-Leste.’

‘My hope,’ the President continued, ‘is for each suco in Timor-Leste to be adopted by a council in Australia. I want each school in Australia to adopt a school in Timor-Leste.’

Opening the conference, the Timor-Leste Minister for State Administration, Snr Archangelo Leite, said he warmly supported the Friendship movement and wanted to see it continue to develop and to progress. He said that governments come and go, but that friendship continued.

The Australian Ambassador to Timor-Leste, HE Peter Heyward, told the conference that the Friendship movement was a true symbol of the closeness of Australia and Timor-Leste. He said that the people to people relationships provided an underlying substance to more formal bilateral relations.

The conference addressed a number of themes, with the individual Friendship groups identifying the long-term commitment of both Australian and Timor-Leste friends to the movement as being their greatest strength, followed by the successes of their many local projects. Communication, including language, telephone, internet and sometimes road access, continued to be the biggest challenge to the movement. In his closing remarks, the Director of State Administration, Snr Abilio Caetano, referred to brothers and sisters coming together in love, peace and solidarity. He said that the challenges to the Friendship movement were in the process of being overcome.

The Convenor of AusTimorFN, Rae Kingsbury, offered her warm thanks to the participants to the conference, saying that the Friendship movement was owned by those people who comprised it.

Rae Kingsbury, Convenor Australia Timor-Leste Friendship Network (AusTimorFN)

The article includes an interview with AusTimorFN Facilitator and Friends of Maliana Co-chair Máire Sheehan, as well as comments from Ambassador Abel Guterres. It also touches on some of the troubled history of Timor-Leste, and its relationship with Australia.

It’s a great article, which you can read at the Sydney Morning Herald website.