Election results to be announced this week indicate that the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, or Fretilin, has likely won a commanding 55 out of 88 parliamentary seats in a vote held on Aug. 30. That’s five seats shy of the number required to pass a constitution–the Legislature’s first task–without consulting other parties. But the victory ensures that Fretilin will dominate the island nation’s first government. Even revered independence leader Xanana Gusmo, almost certain to be voted president of the new republic in elections in April 2002, stumped for smaller parties during the campaign, arguing that his former comrades should not be given too much power. “A big Fretilin win could kill the dynamic of debate and compromise,” warns Agio Pereira, a former member of the United Nations-sponsored National Council, the territory’s recently disbanded Legislature.
Going into the election, Fretilin–formed in the 1970s and banned by Indonesia when it invaded in December 1975–was the only party most East Timorese had ever heard of. So the 57 percent of the vote garnered by the party is less impressive a mandate than it seems. Party leader Mari Alkatiri is sounding appropriately humble. “We will never be a one-party state,” he told NEWSWEEK before the vote. “Even if we win big, we will consult others and form a coalition of talent.”
Timorese have reason to doubt his words. Unlike Gusmo, Alkatiri has not apologized publicly for the alleged atrocities committed by Fretilin and its Falintil guerrillas during the struggle against Indonesia. Even if he is sincere now, he may inevitably clash with the man everyone expects to be president. According to East Timorese Nobel laureate and Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta, who has been trying to mediate between Gusmo and Alkatiri, the former guerrilla “has a strong resentment and anger towards Fretilin. He saw Fretilin’s campaign as reminiscent of its radicalism of the 1970s.” The two leaders have not sat down together in more than a year.
Unless relations thaw between them, East Timor’s precarious nation-building experiment could be put in jeopardy. Alkatiri will now be responsible for running the day-to-day affairs of the country, while Gusmo will serve as a senior adviser for defense and development affairs. They could quickly clash over economic policy: Gusmo worries that Fretilin leaders do not share the modern, investor-friendly outlook necessary to attract badly needed foreign capital. They could also disagree over the Constitution, since Alkatiri favors limiting presidential powers to defense and foreign affairs. Fretilin has reportedly already drafted its own Constitution. If Alkatiri tries to push that version through the Legislature without inviting the opinion of leaders outside the party, he could well drive Gusmo, who until recently claimed he had no intention of running for president, to pull out of the race again. East Timor could easily be divided just when it most needs–and has a right to expect–to be united.
