East Timor elects new governor today

By Virgilio S. Guterres and Lourenco V. Martins

DILI (JP): The 45 members of the provincial legislative council will elect a new governor for East Timor today from among three contenders approved recently by Minister of Home Affairs Moch. Yogie S.M.

The three are incumbent Governor Abilio Jose Osorio Soares, Manufahi Regent Nazario Jose Tilman de Andrade and Baucau Regent Virgilio Maria Dias Marcal. Two other names that the council had suggested earlier, but were scratched by Yogie, were Council Speaker Armindo Soares Mariano and Dili Regent Domingos Maria das Dores Soares.

The removal of Armindo's name from the list was a surprise to many as he, along with Abilio, was considered the strongest candidate for East Timor governor for 1997/2002.

Throughout its integration history, East Timor has been fraught with problems and has always been the center of world attention. It is therefore no exaggeration to say that it is crucial for the province to have a highly credible leader.

The following are opinions of several observers about the ideal profile of a governor for the province.

House member Salvador Januario Ximenes Soares is of the opinion that the nominees that have been put forward are capable of leading East Timor, but Abilio has the biggest chance as he has five years' experience leading the province.

"It has been customary in our election process that if an incumbent governor is renominated, it means that he is still needed and will be reelected," Soares said in Jakarta recently.

He admitted that under Abilio's governorship in the past five years, the province experienced tremendous progress.

However, if he was reelected, Soares said the first thing he would have to do would be to introduce discipline and orderliness to his administration. He said Abilio needed to establish a clean bureaucracy capable of accommodating people's aspirations and translating them into the reality of development undertakings.

"Clean apparatus must not be mere political slogans," he stressed.

Soares hoped that with concrete steps and policies Abilio would be able to disprove rumors about corruption in his present administration. The rumors were flying before and during the nomination process.

Asked about the importance of the next governor for the settlement of the East Timor issue abroad, Soares said he hoped that he or she would have a bearing on the process.

He pointed out that the issue raised abroad was in fact inseparable with what has been happening in East Timor.

"As long as what happens in East Timor is favorable, the reflection abroad will be so, too. However, if bad things happen in East Timor, the reflection abroad will also be bad," said Soares, who attended the All Inclusive Intra East Timorese Dialogs I and II in Austria.

He went on to say, however, that irrespective of the East Timor political question, which was still far from being solved, the governor was not the only person who had to play a role in East Timor.

In this respect, there is the church, the Armed Forces and other community figures whose involvement in the problem is very much expected, he said.

Soares was of the opinion that a settlement was far from being reached as long as negotiations between Indonesia and Portugal under the auspice of the United Nations secretary-general failed to create a "take and give" atmosphere, with each side refusing to budge from their original positions.

Embracing

Separately, resident Olandina Caeiro Alves said the ideal profile of the East Timor governor was one who had two important traits, namely the ability to embrace all layers of society, and the political capability of contributing to the settlement of the East Timor question internationally.

"So, one should not simply shout slogans on the stage or merely (make promises) and then forget to dedicate himself to the people once he is elected governor," she told The Jakarta Post. She spoke in her private capacity as an East Timorese rather than as a provincial legislative council member of the Indonesian Democratic Party.

A non-governmental organization activist, Florentino Sarmento, said: "We have always been expecting an ideal (governor) -- something that has never become a reality."

He expressed hope that the next governor would be "one who is practical in his actions and has a realistic way of thinking".

He believed the incumbent governor had a better chance because of his experience at the post.

"Abilio enjoys the support of both East Timorese and the central government," said Sarmento, formerly a director of the East Timor Agriculture Development Program.

"Another reason is that Abilio is one who has honest intentions of bringing welfare to the East Timorese," he said.

He cited Abilio's efforts to fight for some sort of autonomy for East Timor. These efforts, according to him, should be seen as putting one's home in order so that the central government had stronger leverage in its campaign to find a diplomatic solution to the East Timor question abroad.

"At first these efforts were unacceptable to various groups in East Timor and also the central government. However, many people, including Dili Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, have expressed their support," he added.