National Parliament has 88 members, 13 elected in single seat constituencies and 75 elected by proportional representation.
The party that garners the most votes will have the right to appoint the prime minister, who will lead the government.
However, despite the choice and the noise around newly formed People’s Liberation Party (PLP) commentators predict it will be business as usual with dominant parties remaining holding balance of power under their consensus style government.
“FRETILIN and the National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT), thanks to their Resistance pedigree and numbers, remain the leading parties,” Iriana Ximenes, the National Technical Advisor to the Minister of State and of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers of Timor-Leste said in the Diplomat Friday.
Critics have warned that consensus politics between these two main parties, FRETILIN and CNRT has intensified corruption and nepotism.
Without an “effective opposition” Khoo Ying Hooi, a professor at University of Malaya, warned of a green-light for “massive government misspending and a lack accountability.”
Former president Taur Matan Ruak, who is running in July’s election for PLP has said the State in 2016 was “far too centralised” and “excessively wastes resources, allowing thousands of Timorese to become second-class citizens.”
Ximenes said those that “disparaged” Timor-Leste’s consensus politics needed to understand the fragility of living in a post-conflict environment.
She said the position came from people who may be “fortunate” not to have experienced societal disintegration wreaked by occupation and war.”
“Timor-Leste needs to stand united for we have greater battles: the development of our nation, and the completion of our sovereignty in the delimitation of permanent maritime and land boundaries,” she said.
The allocated electoral numbers include: (1) Bloco Unidade Popular (BUP), (2) Associação Popular Monarquia Timorense (APMT), (3) Kmanek haburas Unidade Nasionál Timor oan (KHUNTO), (4) Partido Esperança da Pátria (PEP), (5) Partido Socialista de Timor (PST), (6) Partido Desenvolvimento Popular (PDP), (7) Conselho Nacional Reconstrução Timor-Leste (CNRT), (8) Partido Republicano (PR), (9) União Democrática Timorense (UDT), (10) Partido Democrático do Cristão (PDC), (11) Movimento Libertação do Povo Maubere (MLPM), (12) Partido da Libertação Popular (PLP), (13) Partido Democrático (PD), (14) Unidade Nasionál Demokrátika da Resistência Timorense (UNDERTIM), (15) Partido Unidade Desenvolvimento Democrático (PUDD), (16) Partido Timorense Democrático (PTD), (17) Frente Mudança, (18) Partido Social Democrata (PSD), (19) Partido Centro Ação Social Democrata de Timorense (CASDT), (20) Partido Desenvolvimento Nacional (PDN), and (21) FRETILIN.
