timor's elections

Timor is in election fever!

last night, received an SMS "election results will be tabulated tonight at the Dili admin bldg 150 metres southof obrigado main gate. avoid the area"

before that: an sms about an attempted break in or counting disruption at Catholic Primary School in old Baucau at 7.25pm...

but so far no major incidents related to the elections which was good!

last evening, i watched the live press conference at the National Electoral Commission on TVTL and was first, very impressed by the fact that Fr Martinho was fielding questions and repeating his answers in FOUR languages: english, tetum, bahasa indonesia and portuguese. initially there were the mundane questions about the ballot papers since there was an earlier shortage of papers at certain polling stations. this was because the elections did not require people to vote at designated centres but they could vote ANYWHERE, and since it was the easter weekend, a lot of people had returned to their home districts, to their sukus which probably led to a surge in numbers at certain spots. Apparently the UN choppers flew out at 230pm to distribute the extra ballot papers to 11 districts but of course, with some spots so remote that required horses to access, the papers didn't get to a small number of stations. I heard Fr Martinho mention that the ballot papers didn't get there in time, and that they would review and see if the voting could resume today. not sure what's the latest on this.

the exciting part came after Anne Barker asked Fr Martinho about the rough estimates on the polls. He said something about receiving lots of smses and phone calls from the different parties from the districts and then (very surprisingly) went on to say 4 names, almost ranking them - Jose Ramos-Horta, Lu'Olo, Lasama and then something about Xavier having won in Hera (according to ASDT news). This caused quite a buzz in the room - even i could feel it sitting in my room watching! When pressed further by an avalanche of questions to clarify what he'd just said, I think the priest realised 'uh-oh, i think i said the wrong thing,' cos he sudddenly back-pedalled and said something like : oh i'm not saying anything or ranking anyone, i jsut said this is what i got from the smses and phone calls, it's not official, and i'm not saying anymore, or i will get into trouble, you can say who you like..... obviously that left a big question mark hovering over the reporters' heads .... bzzzzzz.....

anyways, it's been an exciting day of seeing timorese out there in action to cast their vote. even the avos, the pregnant women, the injured turned out to have a say. TVTL also made good effort to send news crews to cover the voting in Liquica, Manatuto, Baucau, Lautem, Covalima, Bobonaro, Dili, Aileu, and Ermera - and made it in time for the 8 o'clock news! kudos TVTL. good effort! Parabens ba TVTL!