DILI, 27 june 2022 (TATOLI) – The National Election Commission (CNE) and President of the Republic, José Ramos Horta have today discussed Timor-Leste’s 2023 Parliamentary Election.
“Today, we are invited by the Head of State to present our thoughts about the past election as well as our preparation for the next year’s parliamentary election. So, we mainly talked about challenges and difficulties facing Timor-Leste in the upcoming election,” The President of CNE, José Agostinho da Costa Belo made the comments after meeting President Horta at Presidential Palace, today.
During the meeting, both parties also discussed the plan for increasing electoral participation rates in the country as well as overseas.
“We need to be well prepared for the next year’s parliamentary election and importantly we need to increase voter participation not only in the country but also overseas. We need to ensure that every Timorese citizen overseas has the opportunity to exercise their democratic rights to vote in the next election,” he said.
Belo said CNE will put effort to realize parliamentary election for Timorese citizens residing, studying, and working in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Canada: “Many Timorese people living in these countries didn’t have the chance to vote in the presidential election.”
Belo stressed that Timor-Leste needs to update its voter database, saying it would be better for the country to introduce biometric technology in Timor-Leste’s elections to prevent electoral fraud.
Biometric voter registration implicates using biometric technology (capturing unique physical features of an individual – fingerprinting is the most commonly used), most of the time in addition to demographics of the voter, for polling registration and/or authentication. The enrollment infrastructure allows collecting and maintaining a database of the biometric templates for all voters.
“So, biometric voter registration would facilitate those citizens who might leave Timor-Leste for other countries a week or a month before any election,” he said.
Belo also shared with President the importance of producing braille ballot papers to facilitate people with vision impairment: “The tactile ballot templates will allow people with sight loss to vote in secret.”
When asked about the timeline of the 2023 Timor-Leste Parliamentary Election, Belo said the official timeline would be announced by the President of the Republic in the near future.
The past Parliamentary election was held on july 22, 2017. FRETILIN party narrowly emerged as the largest party in the National Parliament, winning 23 seats to the 22 won by the National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT), which had been the largest party in the outgoing Parliament.
However, FRETILIN’s failed budget sparked a political crisis which led Timor-Leste to hold early parliamentary elections on may 12, 2018 after the National Parliament was dissolved by President Francisco Guterres on 26 january 2018.
The Alliance for Change and Progress (AMP), a coalition of three opposition parties (CNRT, PLP, and KHUNTO), won an absolute majority of 34 of the 65 seats in Parliament, with AMP securing 34 seats, FRETILIN having 23 seats, 5 seats for Democratic Party, and FDD with 3 seats. Voter turnout was 81 percent, five percentage points higher than the previous year.
On january 15, 2020, after budget rejection at the National Parliament, leaving Prime Minister Taur Matan Ruak declared the governing coalition at that time no longer exists, which was later supported by FRETILIN and KHUNTO to form another coalition of the current government.
Journalist: Filomeno Martins
Editor: Nelia Borges
