Political Reviews • Melanesia 563 Timor-Leste

political reviews • melanesia 563 -reaches-crisis-point/8780 [accessed The year also saw a historic agreement 10 Jan 2019] between Timor-Leste and Australia who, World Health Organization. 2014. that fixed maritime boundaries at the Noncommunicable Diseases Country median line in the Timor Sea (Leach Profiles 2014. https://apps.who.int/iris/ 2018), ending a long-running dispute bitstream/handle/10665/128038/ between the two nations. The year 9789241507509_eng.pdf?sequence=1 was capped off by the government [accessed 25 Jan 2019] outlining its bold vision for resource ———. 2018. Noncommunicable Diseases sovereignty, and its plan to purchase a Country Profiles 2016: Solomon Islands. majority share in the Greater Sunrise https://www.who.int/nmh/countries/2018/ joint venture, to advance its ambitious slb_en.pdf?ua=1 [accessed 25 Jan 2019] goal of downstream processing oil and ———. 2019. ncd Global Monitoring gas on the East Timorese south coast. Framework. Available from https://www The July 2017 election saw the .who.int/nmh/global_monitoring opposition fretilin party emerge _framework/en/ [accessed 13 May 2019]. narrowly ahead of the National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (cnrt) in terms of seats but unable to establish the alliances necessary Timor-Leste to form a majority. With no alterna- From 25 January, when the president tive majority coalition then being announced an early election for 12 proposed, in September President May, it was clear that 2018 would Guterres appointed the first minor- prove an eventful political year in ity government in Timor-Leste’s short Timor-Leste. The May election fol- constitutional history: a thirty-seat lowed a nine-month fretilin-led minority coalition with the Demo- minority government, which proved cratic Party. But events moved rapidly, unable to steer its program and budget and a political standoff emerged in through Parliament because the oppo- October when three opposition par- sition parties formed a majority bloc ties—the cnrt, the Popular Liberation a month after the government was Party (plp), and Enrich the National installed (fretilin is the acronym for Unity of the Sons of Timor (khunto), one of Timor-Leste’s major political together controlling thirty-five of parties, the Revolutionary Front for an Parliament’s sixty-five seats—rejected Independent East Timor). The elec- the government’s program. tion brought the Xanana Gusmão–led Having failed to pass a budget recti- Alliance for Change and Progress fication measure needed to fund new (amp) coalition back into office. programs, the state reverted to a duo- Having returned to power, the new decimal system based on a monthly government soon found itself mired allocation of one-twelfth of the previ- in a standoff over ministerial appoint- ous year’s budget. The extended use of ments with the president, fretilin’s this reserve budget system lasted until Francisco Guterres, in the first genu- a new budget was passed in September ine experience of cohabitation under 2018, and it depressed the national Timor-Leste’s semi-presidential system. economy, which remains heavily reli- 564 the contemporary pacific • 31:2 (2019) ant on government-led expenditures. the revenue 90 to 10 in its favor. As Rather than installing the opposi- these fields are nearing the end of their tion AMP coalition as the government, life, far more financially significant President Guterres instead announced is the renegotiated revenue split over a new election, with the fretilin– the as-yet-untapped Greater Sunrise Democratic Party executive acting field, worth in excess of us$40 billion, as a caretaker government in the which straddles the eastern lateral (or meantime. side) boundary of the Joint Petroleum Meanwhile, in the realm of inter- Development Area. national relations, maritime boundary The renegotiated agreement saw a negotiations with Australia continued substantial increase in Timor-Leste’s under the aegis of a United Nations share of the future Greater Sunrise Convention on the Law of the Sea revenues, from 50 percent to 70 or 80 (unclos) compulsory conciliation percent, pending resolution of the final process, which was triggered by contested issue of where the pipeline Timor-Leste. Following twelve months for downstream processing will land— of negotiations that saw “confidence- in Australia or Timor-Leste. The building measures” enacted—includ- higher revenue figure would operate ing the termination of the Certain in the event that Timor-Leste does not Maritime Arrangements in the Timor achieve its goal of sending the pipeline Sea treaty, which purported to delay to the southern coast of Timor. maritime boundary determination for Despite these successes, which fifty years, and Timor-Leste’s cessation vindicated the East Timorese use of of a separate espionage case against the unclos conciliation process, chief Australia—Timor-Leste and Australia negotiator Gusmão remained unhappy jointly declared that they had reached at the failure to secure a pipeline to the an agreement on “central aspects” of East Timorese coast, a development a maritime-boundary determination in vision he had championed for years. late 2017 (Permanent Court of Arbi- Advancing the plan for downstream tration 2017). processing remained a key focus of the Once ratified by both parties, the government throughout 2018. Despite agreement, which was finally revealed this aspect of the issue remaining unre- on 6 March 2018 (Permanent Court of solved, the historic treaty marked the Arbitration 2018), will create perma- end of a key stumbling block in the nent maritime boundaries and revised Australia–Timor-Leste relationship, resource-sharing arrangements in the opening the way for a major resetting yet-to-be-developed Greater Sunrise of the countries’ troubled bilateral ties, oil and gas field. Timor-Leste secured and ministerial visits soon resumed— a median-line boundary in the Timor the first in five years. Gap, creating a permanent maritime Unlike the 2017 elections, par- boundary for the first time. The liamentary elections in May 2018 median-line boundary will place 100 delivered a decisive result. The amp, percent of the existing Joint Petroleum by now a coalition of cnrt, plp, and Development Area in Timor-Leste’s khunto, won 49.6 percent of the waters, where current treaties divided national vote, delivering thirty-four political reviews • melanesia 565 out of sixty-five seats and winning a tance, Falintil. The 2018 campaign narrow majority in its own right. In was frequently depicted as a contest Timor-Leste’s proportional system, between the military front and mem- where outright majorities are uncom- bers of the diplomatic front, who were mon, this was a strong vindication of outside the country during the occupa- the decision to combine the forces of tion, including Prime Minister Mari Gusmão’s cnrt with former Presi- Alkatiri and key diplomatic figure Jose dent Taur Matan Ruak’s plp and the Ramos-Horta, who had also thrown smaller, youth-focused khunto in a his weight behind the fretilin cam- formal preelection coalition. paign. A series of campaign attacks While the amp achieved a swing sought to diminish the contribution of of 3.1 percent on its collective 2017 those who struggled for independence results, the entry of a new, smaller in the international arena, emphasiz- coalition (the Democratic Develop- ing the greater suffering endured by ment Forum) saw the amp’s collective those within the territory during the tally of seats fall by one. fretilin occupation. received 34.2 percent of the national This division over resistance history vote and 23 seats, maintaining its lent an unpleasant air to a campaign 2017 seat tally. This represented a that was also marked by exchanges of substantial swing of 4.5 percent, the personal slurs between the major party first major swing to the party since leaders, including some outbursts of 2007, though it proved insufficient to anti-Muslim sentiment directed at overcome the formidable amp coali- fretilin leader Alkatiri, and frac- tion. The Democratic Party was also tious personal debates on Facebook. back in Parliament with 5 seats (down Civil society called for a new focus on from 7 in 2017), and the new Demo- policies rather than personalities and cratic Development Forum coalition for parties to refrain from personal secured 3: though this smaller alliance attacks (Fundasaun Mahein 2018). soon split, with one of its members of Election Day passed without major Parliament clearly more favorable to incident, though comments from the fretilin opposition. This left the Gusmão that he “would not accept the government with a simple majority in result if it was not fair” were unhelp- its own right—but without the two- ful and built on a series of complaints thirds supermajority necessary for the from the amp during the campaign reversal of certain presidential vetoes. that were not backed by strong evi- The 2018 campaign was marked by dence. In its preliminary report, the a high level of polarization and by the largest observer mission referred to resurgence of the “history wars,” an the “injudicious and inappropriate ongoing clash between the two wings language of some political representa- of the East Timorese resistance during tives” and noted that allegations about the Indonesian occupation. The amp the election process are “serious in reunited Gusmão and his cnrt with character and, if made, need to be sup- Ruak’s plp, which had been at logger- ported by evidence” (atleom 2018). heads during the 2017 election.

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