Timor-Leste’s opposition party won Sunday’s parliamentary election. 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 Timor-Leste. He already known as CNRT, won 41 percent of the votes and gained 31 seats out of 65 in the National Parliament. That just short of the 33 needed for an outright majority. 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. He became the nation’s first president between 2002 and 2007.
Thus, 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 Timor-Leste, or Fretilin. He received 25 percent of the votes and 19 seats. It promised to accept the election outcome.
Ruling Party
A total of 17 parties ran in the election. They required to have a woman in at least every third position in their party list. And seats allocated for those with an electoral threshold of 4 percent.
He pledged to allow the development of the Greater Sunrise oil and gas project. This aims to tap trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. It could give Timor-Leste 70 percent of the revenues if gas piped to Timor-Leste and 80 percent if the gas is piped to Australia.
Under Timor-Leste’s Constitution, the prime minister acts as the head of government. Thus, it has more legislative power than the president, who is head of state.
Fretilin and CNRT have blamed each other for years of political paralysis. Tensions between the two largest parties since 2018 led to the resignation of Prime Minister Taur Matan Ruak in 2020 after the government repeatedly failed to pass a budget.
