I am saddened by the death of one of the most inspirational Pacific women and leaders I have worked with — Motarilavoa Hilda Lini of Vanuatu.

She was one of the strongest, most committed passionate fighter I know for self-determination, decolonisation, independence, indigenous rights, customary systems and a nuclear-free Pacific.

Hilda coordinated the executive committee of the women’s wing of the Vanuatu Liberation Movement prior to independence and became the first woman Member of Parliament in Vanuatu in 1987.

Hilda became director of the Pacific Concerns Resource Centre (PCRC) in Suva in 2000. She took over from another Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) giant Lopeti Senituli, who returned to Tonga to help the late ‘Akilisi Poviha with the pro-democracy movement.

I was editor of the PCRC newsletter Pacific News Bulletin at the time. There was no social media then so the newsletter spread information to activists and groups across the Pacific on issues such as the struggle in West Papua, East Timor’s fight for independence, decolonisation in Tahiti and New Caledonia, demilitarisation, indigenous movements, anti-nuclear issues, and sustainable development.

On all these issues — Hilda Lini was a willing and fearless chief taking on any government, corporation or entity that undermined the rights or interests of Pacific peoples.

Hilda was uncompromising on issues close to her heart. There are very few Pacific leaders like her left today. Leaders who did not hold back from challenging the norm or disrupting the status quo, even if that meant being an outsider.

Banned over activism
She was banned from entering French Pacific territories in the 1990s for her activism against their colonial rule and nuclear testing.

She was fierce but also strategic and effective.

We brought Jose Ramos Horta to speak and lobby in Fiji as East Timor fought for independence from Indonesia, Oscar Temaru before he became President of French Polynesia, West Papua’s Otto Ondawame, and organised Flotilla protests against shipments of Japanese plutonium across the Pacific, among the many other actions to stir awareness and action.

On top of her bold activism, Hilda was also a mother to us. She was kind and caring and always pushed the importance of family and indigenous values.

Our Pacific connections were strong and before our eldest son Mitchell was born in 2002 — she asked me if she could give him a middle name.

She gave him the name Hadye after her brother — Father Walter Hadye Lini who was the first Prime Minister of Vanuatu. Mitchell’s full name is Mitchell Julian Hadye Simpson.

Pushed strongly for ideas
We would cross paths several times even after I moved to start the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) but she finished from PCRC in 2004 and returned to Vanuatu.

She often pushed ideas on indigenous rights and systems that some found uncomfortable but stood strong on what she believed in.

Hilda had mana, spoke with authority and truly embodied the spirit and heart of a Melanesian and Pacific leader and chief.

Thank you Hilda for being the Pacific champion that you were.

Stanley Simpson is director of Fiji’s Mai Television and general secretary of the Fijian Media Association. Father Walter Hadye Lini wrote the foreword to Asia Pacific Media editor David Robie’s 1986 book Eyes Of Fire: The Last Voyage of the Rainbow Warrior.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Papua New Guinea’s new media draft policy would put a stop to reporting news not regarded as “positive” for the country’s image, says former PNG Media Council director Bob Howarth.

Howarth, who was director from 2001-2005, said that the national government needed to seriously look at the way the media scene in Timor-Leste had thrived from next to nothing in 1999 when its violent emergence from foreign occupation became full democracy.

“The small nation has the highest press freedom ranking in the region and has a very active press council supported by the UNDP [United Nations Development Programme] and several foreign NGOs,” said Howarth, who as well as advising Timor-Leste media has helped editorial staff on several newspapers.

“[The Timor-Leste Press Council] has a staff of 35 and runs professional training for local journalists in close co-operation with university journalism schools.”

“Visiting foreign reporters don’t need special visas in case they write about ‘non-positive’ issues like witchcraft murders, tribal warfare corruption or unsold Maseratis.”

The National Media Development Policy has been public since February 5 and already it has been soundly criticised for “hasty” consultations on the draft law and a tight deadlne for submissions.

University input
Howarth said that with easier online meetings, thanks to Zoom PNG’s new look, the media council could include input from the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) and Divine Word journalism schools plus a voice from critical regions such as Bougainville, Western Highlands and Goroka.

“And Timorese journalists can easily contact their President, José Ramos-Horta, a staunch defender of press freedom and media diversity, without going through government spin doctors,” he said.

Howarth said the PNG government could look into the media scene in Timor-Leste to do their media policy.

Meanwhile, in Brisbane the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) — Australia’s main union representing journalists — has passed a resolution endorsing support for the PNG Media Council.

“MEAA supports the [MCPNG] concerns about the possible impact of the government’s draft National Media Development Policy on media freedom; regulation of access to information; and the restructuring of the national broadcaster, including proposed reduction in government funding,” said the MEAA resolution.

Republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Timor-Leste, the youngest independent nation and the most fledgling press in the Asia-Pacific, has finally shown how it’s done — with a big lesson for Pacific island neighbours.

Tackle the Chinese media gatekeepers and creeping authoritarianism threatening journalism in the region at the top.

In Dili on the final day of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s grand Pacific tour to score a multitude of agreements and deals — although falling short of winning its Pacific region-wide security pact for the moment — newly elected (for the second time) President José Ramos-Horta won a major concession.

Enough of this paranoid secrecy and contemptuous attitude towards the local – and international – media in democratic nations of the region.

Under pressure from the democrat Ramos-Horta, a longstanding friend of a free media, Wang’s entourage caved in and allowed more questions like a real media conference.

Lusa newsagency correspondent in Dili Antonió Sampaio summed up the achievement in the face of the Pacific-wide secrecy alarm in a Facebook post: “After the controversy, the Chinese minister gave in and agreed to speak with journalists. A small victory for the media in Timor-Leste!”

Small victory, big tick
A small victory maybe. But it got a big tick from Timor-Leste Journalists Association president Zevonia Vieira and her colleagues. He thanked President Ramos Horta for his role in ending the ban on local media and protecting the country’s freedom of information.

Media consultant Bob Howarth, a former PNG Post-Courier publisher and longtime adviser to the Timorese media, hailed the pushback against Chinese secrecy, saying the Chinese minister answering three questions — elsewhere in the region only one was allowed and that had to be by an approved Chinese journalist — as a “press freedom breakthrough”.

On the eve of Wang’s visit, Timor-Leste’s Press Council had denounced the restrictions being imposed on journalists before Horta’s intervention.

“In a democratic state like East Timor not being able to have questions is unacceptable,” said president Virgilio Guterres. “There may be limits for extraordinary situations where there can be no coverage, but saying explicitly that there can be no questions is against the principles of press freedom.”

The Chinese delegation justified the decision to ban questions from journalists or to exclude from the agenda any statements with “lack of time” and the “covid-19 pandemic” excuses.

However, Ramos-Horta was also quietly supportive of the Chinese overtures in the region.

According to Sampiaio, when questioned in the media conference about fears in the West about China’s actions in the Pacific, Ramos-Horta said “there is no reason for alarm” and noted that Beijing had always had interests in the region, for example in fishing.

‘A lot of lobbying’
“These Pacific countries have done a lot of lobbying with China to get more support and China is responding to that. These one-off agreements with one country or another, they don’t affect the long-standing interests of countries like Australia and the United States,” he said.

An article by The Guardian’s Pacific Project editor Kate Lyons highlighted China’s authoritarian approach to the media this week, saying “allegations raise press freedom concerns and alarm about the ability of Pacific journalists to do their jobs, particularly as the relationship between the region and China becomes closer.”

But one of the most telling criticisms came from Fiji freelance journalist Lice Movono, whose television crew reporting for the ABC, was deliberately blocked from filming. Pacific Islands Forum officials intervened.

“From the very beginning there was a lot of secrecy, no transparency, no access given,” she told The Guardian.

“I was quite disturbed by what I saw. When you live in Fiji you kind of get used to the militarised nature of the place, but to see the Chinese officials do that was quite disturbing.

“To be a journalist in Fiji is to be worried about imprisonment all the time. Journalism is criminalised. You can be jailed or the company you work for can be fined a crippling amount that can shut down the operation … But to see foreign nationals pushing you back in your own country, that was a different level.”

Media soul-searching

China was moderately successful in signing multiple bilateral agreements with almost a dozen Pacific Island nations during Wang’s visit to the region. The tour began 11 days ago in Solomon Islands — where a secret security pact with China was leaked in March — and since then Wang has met Pacific leaders from Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Niue (virtually), Cook Islands (virtually) and Vanuatu.

However, the repercussions from the visit on the media will lead to soul searching for a long time. Some brief examples of the interaction with Beijing’s authoritarianism:

Solomon Islands: The level of secrecy and selective media overtures surrounding Wang’s meetings with the government sparked the Media Association of the Solomon Islands (MASI) to call on local media to boycott coverage of the visit in protest over the “ridiculous” restrictions.

Samoa: Samoan journalist Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson criticised the Chinese restrictions on the media with only a five-minute photo-op allowed and no questions or individual interviews. There was also no press briefing before or after Wang’s visit.

Fiji: No questions were allowed during the brief joint press conference between Wang and Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama. Local media later reported that, according to Fijian officials, the no-question policy came from the Chinese side.

Examples of local media publishing propaganda were demonstrated by the pro-government Fiji Sun, with a full page “ocean of peace” op-ed written by Chinese Ambassador Qian Bo claiming China’s engagement with Pacific Island countries was “open and transparent”. The Sun followed up with report written by the Chinese embassy in Fiji touting the “great success” of Wang’s visit.

Tonga: Matangi Tonga also published an article by Chinese Ambassador Cao Xiaolin a day before Wang’s visit claiming how “China has never interfered in the internal affairs of [Pacific Island countries]” and would “adhere to openness.”

Global condemnation
The secrecy and media control surrounding Wang’s tour was roundly condemned by the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists and Paris-based Reporters Without Borders and other media freedom watchdogs.

“The restriction of journalists and media organisations from the Chinese delegation’s visit … sets a worrying precedent for press freedom in the Pacific,” said the IFJ in a statement.

“The IFJ urges the governments of Solomon Islands and China to ensure all journalists are given fair and open access to all press events.”

#RSF condemns #Chinese curb on #reporters during #Pacific island tour #AsiaPacificReport @PNGAttitude @pngfacts @RSF_AsiaPacific #mediafreedom #pressfreedom #ChinaInPacific #WangYi #securitypacthttps://t.co/CGxwNn2O5U pic.twitter.com/XbBIfDIt2u

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) June 3, 2022

Likewise, RSF’s Asia-Pacific director Daniel Bastard said the actions surrounding the events organised by the Chinese delegation with several Pacific island states “clearly contravenes the democratic principles of the region’s countries”.

He added: “We call on officials preparing to meet Wang Yi to resist Chinese pressure by allowing local journalists and international organisations to cover these events, which are of major public interest.”

University of the South Pacific journalism head Associate Professor Shailendra Singh also criticised the Chinese actions, saying “we have two different systems here. China has a different political system — a totalitarian system, and in the Pacific we have a democratic system.”

In Papua New Guinea, the last country to be visited in the Pacific before Timor-Leste, “there appeared to be little resistance” to the authoritarian screen, according to independent journalist Scott Waide, a champion of press freedom in his country.

“There’s not a lot of awareness about the visit,” he admits. “I would have liked to have seen a visible expression of resistance at least of some sort. But from Hagen, where I was this week. I didn’t see much.”

Waide has been training journalists as part of the ABC’s Media for Development Initiative (MDI) programme as a prelude to the PNG’s general election in July.
https://www.abc.net.au/abc-international-development/projects/

The #WangYi Pacific tour reached #Fiji to tight security and a clear message that #China doesn’t welcome foreign media coverage around its officials. Were it not for Pacific media solidarity that is inclusive of ANZ press, today would have been (even more) interesting. #FijiNews pic.twitter.com/C3xwARRGuc

— Lice Movono (@LiceMovono) May 29, 2022

‘Problems to be resolved’
“We have problems that need to be resolved. Over the last month, I’ve tried to impart as much as possible through training workshops on the elections,” he told Pacific Media Watch But there are huge gaps in terms of journalism training. I believe that is a contributor to the lack of obvious pushback over Wang’s visit.”

Reflecting on China’s Pacific tour, Lice Movono, said: “At the time of my interview with The Guardian, I think I was still pretty rattled. Now I think the best way to describe my response is that I feel extremely disturbed.”

She expressed concerns that mostly women journalists from the region noted “but that didn’t get enough traction when other media covered the incident(s) — that China was able to behave that way because the governments of the Pacific allowed it, or in the case of Fiji, preferred it that way.

Movono said that since her criticisms, she had come in for nasty attention by trolls.

“I’m getting some hateful trolling from Chinese twitter accounts – got called a ‘fat pig’ yesterday,” she told Pacific Media Watch.

“Also I’m being accused of lying because some photos have come out of the doorstop we did on the Chinese ambassador here and some have purported that to be an accurate portrayal of Chinese ‘friendliness’ toward media.”

So the pushback from President Ramos-Horta is a welcome sign for media freedom in the region.

Timor-Leste rose to 17th in the 2022 RSF World Press Freedom Index listing of 180 countries — the highest in the Pacific region — while both Fiji and Papua New Guinea fell in the rankings. There are some definite lessons there for media freedom defenders.

Frustrated Pacific journalists hope that there will be a more concerted effort to defend media freedom in the future against creeping authoritarianism.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Independence leader and Nobel laureate José Ramos-Horta has declared victory in Timor-Leste’s presidential election, saying he had secured “overwhelming” support and would now work to foster dialogue and unity.

Data from the country’s election administration body (STAE) with all votes counted showed Ramos-Horta secured a decisive 62 percent win in Tuesday’s ballot, well ahead of his opponent, incumbent President Francisco “Lu Olo” Guterres with 37 percent.

“I have received this mandate from our people, from the nation in an overwhelming demonstration of our people’s commitment to democracy,” Ramos-Horta told reporters in Dili.

The 72-year-old statesman is one of Timor-Leste’s best known political figures and was previously president from 2007-12, and prime minister and foreign minister before that.

Addressing concerns over political instability in the country, Ramos-Horta said he would work to heal divisions in Timor-Leste.

“I will do what I have always done throughout my life… I will always pursue dialogue, patiently, relentlessly, to find common ground to find solutions to the challenges this country faces,” he said.

Ramos-Horta said he had not spoken to his election rival Lu Olo, but had received an invitation from the President’s Office to discuss a handover of power.

Political instability, oil dependency
Home to 1.3 million people, the half-island and predominately Roman Catholic nation of Timor-Leste has for years grappled with bouts of political instability and the challenge of diversifying its economy, which is largely dependent on oil and gas.

Ramos-Horta said he expected Timor-Leste to become the 11th member of the regional bloc the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) “within this year or next year at the latest”.

Timor-Leste currently holds observer status in ASEAN.

The president-elect, who will be inaugurated on May 20, the 20th anniversary of the country’s restoration of independence, said he would work with the government to respond to global economic pressures, including the impact on supply chains from the war in Ukraine and covid-19 lockdowns in China.

“Of course, we start feeling it here in Timor Leste. Oil prices went up, rice went up, that is a reality of what has happened in the world. It requires wise leadership.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

ANALYSIS: By Ivo Mateus Goncalves in Canberra

Today, the people of Timor-Leste will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the popular consultation, through which the nation restored the independence it had prematurely declared in 1975.

An election was held, a new president elected, new legislative members put in place and a new government sworn in as the Democratic Republic of East Timor once again came into existence following the historic referendum of 1999.

Those ceremonial sequences marked an end to colonial rule (by Portugal for 450 years and Indonesia for 24 years) over East Timor.

READ MORE: US knew Indonesia intended to stop East Timorese independence through ‘terror and violence’

A common historic feature of postcolonial countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America is that independence does not necessarily mean that a former colony is free from its former master. Timor-Leste is still heavily dependent on Indonesia in many ways, including trade.

However, an independent Timor-Leste has also become “a heaven” for Indonesian construction and banking industry players. State-owned lenders Bank Rakyat Indonesia and Bank Mandiri are operating in Timor-Leste.

In his courtesy visit to Jakarta in 2015, then-prime minister Rui Maria Araujo told Indonesian media that Indonesia had “contributed positively to East Timor’s economic development,” citing 400 private Indonesian companies that were present in the small country.

The looming large of the Indonesian corporations, however, has sparked allegations of collusive practices between Indonesian businessmen and local compradors, who include veterans of the war, government officials as well as members of Parliament.

Fuelled by incentives
“Flight tickets to Bali, luxury hotels and deals behind the bar,” a researcher named the incentives fueling the alleged hanky-panky.

Ahead of the celebration, East Timor independence leader Xanana Gusmao gave the country another shock as he decided to name a new bridge at the heart of Dili after Indonesia’s third president BJ Habibie.

The decision aroused criticism mainly from civil society organiSations and survivors of Indonesia’s colonial rule. Worse, residents were evicted to pave the way for the bridge’s construction.

Just recently, a member of Parliament from the Alliance for Change and Progress (AMP) said the decision to name the bridge after the former Indonesian leader was to honour his contribution to East Timor’s independence.

Under Habibie, Indonesia signed an agreement with Portugal on May 5, 1999, that led to the popular consultation.

By putting Habibie center stage of the celebration, while ignoring the people’s resistance to colonial domination, the Timor-Leste freedom fighters and government are attempting to suck the national history into a black hole.

Jose Ramos-Horta, the diplomat, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former president of Timor-Leste, described Habibie as Indonesia’s Charles de Gaulle for announcing the political options for East Timor in 1999.

Two sides of coin
However, like two sides of the same coin, De Gaulle has become le mal aimé (the unloved one). Speaking in front of a large crowd in Algiers on June 4, 1958, a few days after his return to power, the French president exclaimed the brief phrase “Je vous ai compris!” (I have understood you).

Like De Gaulle, Habibie became the most unpopular figure in Indonesia after his historic announcement.

In an interview, Habibie vehemently said he had come under pressure by Australian Prime Minister John Howard to release the political options on East Timor’s future.

Twenty years have passed. Infrastructure development has moved fast as Timor-Leste tries to catch up with Southeast Asian neighbors and become a middle-income country by 2030.

Nevertheless, the momentum is not really on Timor-Leste’s side, as it still struggles to secure admission to ASEAN.

Unfortunately, in terms of human resources, about 46 percent of its children aged under 5 years suffer from chronic malnutrition – considered one of the highest rates in the world, and about 70 percent of the country’s children are illiterate.

Fresh graduates enter the labour market in rapidly increasing numbers every year, only to find government institutions and the public sector unable to absorb their talent. Productive industries like agriculture and tourism seem promising, but the government has allocated a large share of its budget to other sectors.

Urbanisation tensions
Given that most of the government institutions are located in Dili, urbanisation in the capital city is difficult to check and has exacerbated social, political and economic tensions.

Basic infrastructure, such as highways and airports, built along the southern coast has failed to lure foreign investment. Most foreign investors only eye the “ambitious” plan to develop an oil processing plant, which is being negotiated with an Australian company.

One way or another, Timor-Leste remains unable to unchain itself from the colonial grip and its proxies. The country has a long history of colonialism, fought it relentlessly and won, but unfortunately has to encounter new forms of colonialism in the political and economic realms.

Apart from the historic moment, what achievement should the people of East Timor celebrate after 20 years of independence?

Ivo Mateus Goncalves is a historian and research student at the Department of Political Affairs at the Australian National University, Canberra. This article was first published in The Jakarta Post.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

After a tense month-long campaign and two rest days, East Timorese cast their votes today in the Timor-Leste’s latest parliamentary elections. With the campaign characterised by considerable bitterness between the major parties, much is at stake.

Despite narrowly prevailing at the election just nine months ago, the Fretilin-led minority government failed to gain parliamentary support for its programme and budget during 2017.

The president — also from Fretilin — dissolved parliament and called today’s poll.

READ MORE: Choices sharpen in Timor-Leste

The East Timorese electoral agencies, short of funds after last year’s election and the parliamentary impasse, have risen to the occasion extremely well.

And, in a remarkable testimony to Timor-Leste’s young population, the electoral roll has grown by 3.1 percent to 784,000 voters, with around 24,000 voters turning 17 in just over nine months since last July.

Last year’s campaign came in the wake of a national unity government involving informal power-sharing between Xanana Gusmão’s CNRT and Fretilin. But relations quickly soured after an election that Fretilin won narrowly with 23 seats to CNRT’s 22.

In the end, Fretilin was only able to attract the Democratic Party, with its seven seats, to its minority coalition government, giving prime minister Dr Mari Alkatiri 30 seats in the 65-seat Parliament.

Rejected programme
Within weeks, the remaining parties had formed the Parliamentary Majority Alliance (AMP) a coalition controlling 35 seats, and had voted down the government’s programme and budget.

Fretilin feels aggrieved that it did not receive parliamentary support after narrowly finishing ahead last year, despite an alternative coalition having been ruled out publicly by Xanana Gusmão in the immediate wake of the July election.

For its part, the AMP feels bitter about Fretilin’s parliamentary tactics last year, which delayed the second presentation of the government programme and prevented it from falling before the six-month mark, when the president could dissolve Parliament and call fresh elections.

AMP figures feel that their alliance should have been installed in government during the life of the Parliament. How these issues have influenced the voting public will be known tomorrow.

This year’s campaign has been marked by the resurgence of the “history wars,” the clash between the two wings of the East Timorese resistance during the Indonesian occupation.

The AMP has reunited Xanana Gusmão and his CNRT with former president Taur Matan Ruak’s Popular Liberation Party (PLP), which were at loggerheads during the 2017 election. Both were leaders of the armed resistance, Falintil.

The campaign has been frequently depicted as a contest between the armed front and members of the diplomatic front, who were outside the country during the occupation, including prime minister Alkatiri and key diplomatic figure Jose Ramos-Horta, who has thrown his weight behind the Fretilin campaign.

Hurt by attacks
Though he has not responded to them, Ramos-Horta has evidently been hurt by the attacks on his legacy, some of which have sought to diminish the contribution of those who struggled for independence in the international arena.

This division over resistance history has lent an unpleasant air to a campaign that has also been marked by exchanges of personal slurs between the major party leaders, including some outbursts of anti-Muslim sentiment directed at the Fretilin leader Dr Mari Alkatiri, and fractious personal debates on Facebook.

From the east of the country have come reports of rock attacks on AMP caravans in Viqueque, bringing back memories of the divisive 2007 election, which occurred in the wake of the 2006 political–military crisis.

The AMP parties have also complained of low-level attacks in Laga region of Baucau, were temperatures still run hot over the death of dissident veteran Mauk Moruk in 2014.

Yet the campaign has been remarkably peaceful on the whole, with colourful mass rallies of party supporters generally well behaved throughout most of the country.

The campaign has also been marred by a handful of accusations of favouritism and irregularities against the electoral agencies, prompting the head of the National Electoral Commission (CNE) to publicly defend the organisation in press conferences.

Several complaints originated on AMP’s Facebook page, including concerns over printing errors in the ballots, which were quickly identified and cancelled, and suspicions about meetings between CNE and political parties that turned out to be part of routine investigation of previous complaints.

Closely watched
The CNE has responded quickly and satisfactorily. With domestic and international observers closely watching the process and extremely professional electoral agencies, there is very little scope for manipulation.

The CNE and the Technical Secretariat of Electoral Administration have done an excellent job under trying circumstances with limited budgets.

While the parties have discussed differing visions for the future, especially during the series of TV debates, considerable energy has been diverted into personal and historical debates within the small political elite. The new AMP alliance brings together two parties that ran last year on fundamentally different development agendas, and it remains to be seen how the CNRT’s focus on major infrastructure spending can be reconciled with the PLP’s more grassroots focus on basic development spending on health education and agriculture.

How voters have received this new combination will be known tomorrow.

For their part, supporters of Fretilin and the Democratic Party (PD) have been on friendly terms throughout the campaign, suggesting the alliance seems to be holding, though this relationship could be easily revisited in the interparty negotiations that follow the election.

The AMP is a formidable coalition of parties that received 29.5 percent, 10.5 percent and 6.5 percent last year: a total of 46.5 per cent. It could also receive the support of the Democratic Development Front, or FDD, the coalition of the smaller parties most likely to exceed the 4 per cent threshold required to get seats. This is not certain, though, and there are at least some rumblings of dissent from one of the parties inside FDD. On the other side, Fretilin received 29.7 percent in 2017, and its PD partner in the minority government received 9.8 percent.

No polls have been taken to indicate the likely result tomorrow. As a baseline indication, if last year’s vote is notionally combined into the new party coalitions that have formed, the AMP would start with a nominal allocation of 33 seats — the minimum majority required.

Favourite on paper
In turn, Fretilin, PD and the FDD would receive 21, six and five seats respectively. If FDD cannot clear the 4 percent hurdle, these notional numbers rise to 36 for the AMP, 22 for Fretilin, and seven for PD.

The AMP therefore starts as favourite on paper, but the outcome tomorrow can easily change from the 2017 results., As a rough guide, Fretilin requires a swing of just under 4 per cent (if FDD does not take seats) rising to more like 6 per cent if the FDD gains seats and backs the AMP.

These are clearly challenging targets for Fretilin, though not impossible, especially in the former case. It may be that the smaller coalition becomes instrumental in the final result if things run close.

Some longer-term trends are striking. At a forum on the elections I conducted in Dili on Thursday, younger Timorese commented that though they are often reluctant to openly criticise their resistance-era leaders, young people are more interested in the development policies of the government and how they will help to create future jobs.

There was also a sense in last year’s election result that while resistance-era legitimacy remains important to political fortunes, it is starting to offer diminishing returns for East Timorese leaders as the median age of the voting public falls, and voters look for solutions to entrenched development problems.

The young people at the forum also felt that the direst warnings of potential trouble if one side or the other loses tomorrow have come from political insiders themselves, with most ordinary people confident that the national police can manage any post-election troubles.

Young voters also said Dili’s noisy and active social media has played a mixed role — allowing more opportunities for debate, on the one hand, and especially for women’s and young people’s voice to come through, but also distributing fake news and rumours, and not fully representing rural voices.

Potential sleeper trend
Another potential sleeper trend is the changing attitude of the Catholic Church to the major parties. The Church responded positively to the concordat with the Vatican orchestrated by the PM of the previous national unity government, Fretilin’s Rui Araujo.

Despite occasional slurs against Mari Alkatiri, most of the older political leadership from the 1970s does not identify strongly with the church, though younger Timorese broadly do.

As tomorrow’s poll approaches, both sides are supremely confident of victory in their public statements. Either way, it is likely that Timor-Leste will be in good hands, and the real issue as always will be how the unsuccessful parties accept the results.

After last year’s uncertain result, East Timorese will be hoping for a clear and decisive outcome.

Dr Michael Leach is Professor of Politics and International Relations at Swinburne University of Technology. This article was first published by Inside Story.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz