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Dili – 12th April 2007 - Prime Minister José Ramos-Horta declared his intention to stand in the second round elections announced today by the President H.E. Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão, to be held on May 9th 2007. Following the announcement, Ramos-Horta spoke openly and candidly to world media about his concerns surrounding the initial electoral process held in Dili on April 9, 2007, which included several key discrepancies in the procedure.
By contrast, the Fretilin secretary general was quick to denounce any discrepancies in the electoral counting process, despite all seven opposing candidates, including Prime Minister Jose Ramos Horta, being united in their concern.
“Those candidates that embrace a true and transparent democracy are united in a direction of discovery. The electoral review is necessary to shape our nation into a successful democracy, we must learn from our mistakes and ensure it doesn’t happen again in the future.
“I support the direction of discovery, for the other candidates who deserve to have a fair and accurate measure of the result, but more importantly for the people of East Timor. Our people believed their vote would be counted; their VOICE would be heard through the ballot box. The values of a democratic nation, equity, transparency and due process, must be honoured, despite the difficulties.
“I am proud that some seven of eight candidates support the democratic right of due process and discovery. This is the path to our destiny. We will strive together and unite to ensure these flaws are eradicated, and the future will be bright”
The concerns of Ramos-Horta and seven other candidates are well founded and validated by the writings of Associate Professor Damien Kingsbury of Deakin University, who today writes for Crikey.com,
“The real problem now appears to be in the gap between the registered number of voters - 522,933, the claimed voter turnout regarded as being in excess of 90 per cent, and the number of valid votes - 357,766. One explanation is that a quarter of the voters did not show up, which seems to go against the reported turnout of over 90 per cent showed up - some say 98%. The problem therefore seems to be with the number of invalid and null votes.
At the count on Monday night, the null and invalid vote count was very low where it was watched, in the order or one or two per cent.
Something therefore appears to have gone awfully wrong.
It is also interesting to note that Fretilin's Francisco Lu-Olo Guterres' vote jumped from 23% with an unofficial but reliable 70 per cent of the votes counted, to 29% at the end. This is a significant statistical aberration based on the last 30 per cent of the vote.’
Based on the figures available, Fretilin looks to be dead in the water in the coming parliamentary elections. Assuming its organisation can only turn out the same number of voters, the non-Fretilin parties will take around 70 per cent of the vote.”
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