Timor-Leste

Abstract

Timor-Leste Michael Leach (bio) The year 2020 started badly for the government of Prime Minister Taur Matan Ruak, whose annual national budget was defeated in January by his own alliance partner, Xanana Gusmão's National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (cnrt) (Leach 2020). The cnrt's unprecedented move was in part an attempt to force an early election in response to the continuing refusal of President Francisco "Lú Olo" Guterres (a senior figure of the opposition Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, or Fretilin, party) to install several cnrt ministers, citing judicial inquiries into misconduct or "poor moral standing" (Colo 2020). This long-running standoff had resulted in an executive government dominated by ministers from the two smaller alliance parties, the Popular Liberation Party (plp) and Kmanek Haburas Unidade Nacional Timor Oan (khunto). Tensions over development decisions between the larger cnrt party and the prime minister's plp had also contributed to testy relations. Despite making major revisions to the budget requested by the cnrt in late 2019, the budget vote was supported only by the plp and khunto, with thirteen votes (Lusa 2020b). The Fretilin opposition voted against the bill, while the cnrt abstained, effectively killing the budget. There was a clear element in these events of the cnrt flexing its parliamentary muscles to bring the smaller alliance parties into line. The immediate consequence was the resumption of the reserve "duodecimal" budget system—which meant the government operated on monthly instalments of one twelfth of the previous 2019 budget, with no funding for new programs. In the leadup to the vote, Ruak pleaded with mps not to force the country back into using the duodecimal system, which was widely blamed for the economic [End Page 579] contraction in 2017 and 2018, when the former Fretilin minority government failed to pass its budget. Timor-Leste's economy is highly dependent on government spending. Though Ruak's administration continued as an interim government, the rejection of the budget made it clear that the governing alliance was at an end. In late February, Gusmão announced a new six-party, thirty-four-seat majority coalition. Alongside his cnrt (21 seats) were the Democratic Party (5 seats), khunto (5 seats), and three smaller parties (1 seat each). The other main development was a publicly announced "platform of understanding" between Fretilin and the plp, which together controlled 31 seats—two short of a majority. Prime Minister Ruak resigned, but the president did not immediately accept this. At this point, there were two clear options for presidential action: a remodeled government drawn from within the existing Parliament or a new election. The president, in no hurry to install the new alliance, required all six parties to the alliance to fulfill legal requirements for party conventions endorsing the coalition. In a clear sign of "cohabitation" tensions, Guterres also publicly advised the cnrt to "think twice" before proposing the same rejected ministers (Tempo Timor 2020). The political situation remained at this impasse as the threat of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (covid-19) hit neighboring Indonesia hard, bringing clear risks to Timor-Leste. Despite the political impasse, the interim government responded quickly and decisively. Following parliamentary approval, the president issued a state-of-emergency decree from March to April, and the government introduced new measures prohibiting the entry of all foreigners unless specifically authorized and requiring fourteen days of self-isolation for all arrivals. These emergency measures would be renewed eight times across 2020. Debates over the extension of the emergency decree would spell the end of Gusmão's new coalition, which fell apart over a cnrt decision to oppose the extension of the pandemic emergency decree (Sampaio 2020), with the youth-oriented khunto party's five mps voting to support the Ruak government against the wishes of the cnrt. The vote on the emergency decree, a crucial test of the alliance's solidity, was defeated 37–23, with four abstentions. Two days later, khunto announced its formal exit from the new coalition, declaring it had "decided to give full support to the current constitutional government until the year 2023" (Lusa 2020a). The dramatic vote was quickly followed by an invitation from Prime Minister Ruak for...