I’ve seen a few reports claiming that voters were rebuking Fretilin, the party formed from the revolutionary group that fought Indonesia for decades. More reliable sources, though, are saying the result is a show of support for the now-independent José Ramos-Horta in Dili, and for Lu’Olu (Fretilin’s man) everywhere else in the country. Since no one has a 50% majority, there’ll be a run-off election in May.

Although there’s street-level calm, the election has turned somewhat scandalous, with various accusations of unfairness being flung in pretty much every direction. The electoral officials, though, seem to think that any resulting error is insignificant.

If supporters of the five presidential candidates who dropped out go for Lu’Olu rather than Ramos-Horta, I wonder what effects that’ll have for Timor-Leste’s relations with other Asian nations (specifically Indonesia)? If the opposite happens, I wonder what prospects remain for cooperation in government, given that Fretilin members (notably the ex-PM, Mari Alkatiri) have accused Gusmao and Ramos-Horta of spreading misinformation?

Either way, I sincerely hope that the lessons learned this time around will be applied to the parliamentary elections in June, by which time Gusmao will be leading a new party …

Update 13/4: There’s confirmation of problems in the count, albeit not as severe as has been alleged.

To be truthful, I’ve not been following the situation very closely of late, but it worries me that there are reports of anti-Australian sentiment on the streets of Dili, allegedly because Australian soldiers are taking sides. After speaking to an ex-Army man in seminars this year, I have a new respect for how difficult life is when you’re stuck in the middle of a conflict, but I wonder if there’s more that could be done to clarify the troops’ role, ensure their impartiality, and deal with the deep-seated rivalries that seem to be at the heart of the ongoing conflicts.

And it just so happens that the recommendations from the International Crisis Group report of a few weeks ago say exactly that, among other things. More recently, the UNHCHR also laid down its report, the one that was supposed to be all shock-and-horror, name-and-shame (but wasn’t really all that surprising). As nice as it is to be reading the work of people who actually understand what’s going on, I wonder if the sound recommendations in these reports will actually get followed, given the quality of Timor’s governance and the bickering that so often seems to slow its development …

At least the situation isn’t the violent chaos that some news services are claiming. Dili-gence reports from the ground that the trouble is confined to Dili and then only in pockets, even though some of those pockets are getting pretty hairy at times.

Considering how little I can find in (the shiny and new!) Technorati, I suspect few people are interested by this. So I’ll comment about it, particularly because I’m fascinated
(hey, it brings together something I’ve been blogging about with something I’m studying!)

First up, it should be noted that this isn’t really a sign of improved stability in Timor-Leste; the old government had been in negotiations to get down with the ASEAN kids for months before the current unrest. Mr Ramos-Horta was at last year’s ASEAN Regional Forum, and there was even talk of him attending the next East Asia Summit.

The announcement does, however, cast some doubt over the old hopes of ASEAN leaders for a nicely rounded clique of ten (which they finally got in 1999). When Timor-Leste first won its independence, some folk in the region said it was more Melanesian than Southeast Asian, and thus didn’t belong in ASEAN. That sentiment has since been overridden by the more widespread belief (particularly strong among the Singaporeans) that ASEAN and its spawn should be inclusive and welcoming to anyone who’s entitled to join.

I doubt that joining ASEAN (if and when it happens, since this announcement is just a statement of intent) will have much impact on the Timorese themselves, except perhaps to help legitimate their government overseas. Whether that’s a good thing is unclear — the last person to have been in the region whom I’ve spoken to was convinced the new leadership is far from clean.

I am vaguely concerned about the effect of continued expansion on ASEAN. Then again, the late-90s naysayers were wrong to claim that picking up Burma and Cambodia would ruin the group, so maybe there’s nothing to be worried about. Actually, it’s quite likely ASEAN will just keep plodding along like it always has, talking lots while making steady (but glacially slow!) progress towards integration.

Timor-Leste, meanwhile, will plod along in poverty, still short of stability or much-needed economic growth …

Peter Hartcher reckons poor old Australia, strong, brave, dependable Australia, has inherited a new empire of failed states who need our paternalism.

I acknowledge the concerns of some about an ‘arc of instability’ to our north; although this isn’t the best term, and it’s a bit condescending to say to our neighbours “we expect you to fail”, it is true that there are lots of governments in trouble on the islands around us. But that’s a far cry from going all nationalist and painting Australia as the shining knight, coming to the rescue of the poor, uncivilised Pacific island barbarians who need to be saved from themselves. (And yet, Hartcher reckons he’s describing a “contrast to … traditional colonialism”!)

Better yet, he claims:

No one else is interested. Not the 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations, which has spent 30 years perfecting the art of talk while cultivating abject uselessness in the science of action.

Having spent the last week reading and writing about ASEAN, I can see this for the ridiculous falsehood that it is. First up, repeating the decades-old claim that ASEAN is a useless talk-fest doesn’t help it to become true (as my thesis will argue … but that’s forthcoming). ASEAN has been glacially slow, sure, but it has also mitigated conflicts, promoted free trade, and is showing real signs of developing strong regional institutions. Second, ASEAN nations have a hard enough time dealing with poverty and political stability problems in their own region, so they tend to overlook countries close to them but outside their grasp — places like Bhutan and Nepal as well as the Solomons and PNG.

(That said, I do agree that ASEAN should be more outward-looking than it is; they’ve failed even to officially acknowledge the problems of Pacific island states.)

Hartcher’s article even implies that Australia can claim credit for leading the bail-out of Asian economies during the 1997 financial crisis (newsflash, mate: that belongs to the IMF, stubborn local ministries, and later the Chiang Mai Initiative).

The only redeeming grace is that towards the end, his article hits the nail on the head: it is indeed “a viable economy and effective governance” that are sorely lacking in Timor and the Solomons. Long-term planning is exactly what is needed. But pointing to Australia as a militaristic saviour (or scaremongering about Northeast Asia, as the end of his article does) is not the answer at all.

Also in today’s news: the US Supreme Court finally sees the obvious but our PM continues to show indifference to looking after the interests of Aussie citizens overseas, and Mari Alkatiri wangles his way out of testifying today for what seem to be selfish reasons, but by stalling I suspect he might also give Dili’s angry protestors a chance to calm down.

It’s been two days now, and the ABC reports that protestors are clearing out of Dili, but in many areas the protests seem to have degenerated into mob violence, fuelled by the ex-PM’s remarks (Tumbleweed even asks if that makes a good case for censorship; normally I’d say no, but I do wonder …).

So my earlier fears have not been appeased. Mari Alkatiri probably did the right thing by stepping down; I don’t know if the accusations against him are true, but he seemed like a destabilising force while still in power. Problem is, his resignation hasn’t helped defuse the situation, and could just leave things in a horribly fragile state unless he is replaced by a competent and popularly respected leader.

As a closing note, elsewhere in SE Asia: if Anwar Ibrahim does run for UN secretary-general later this year, I wonder what the reaction in Malaysia will be like? Somehow I doubt any of the ASEAN states would want to vote for him in the General Assembly, for fear of offending his former party UMNO …

The momentary crisis caused by President Gusmao’s threat to resign has passed, with protestors begging him to stay, but the problems in the country’s leadership still seem to be simmering. In a stable democracy, ideological conflicts between a president and a prime minister are all good and well (I recall writing something along those lines in my exam last week …), but in a young country in the midst of civil unrest, that kind of conflict can’t be allowed to create a base for bigger conflict, the kind involving angry mobs. So far in Dili it hasn’t, and the foreign troops are a stabilising factor, but I’m fearful that this might not remain the case.

I wonder if the lack of attention from the Western world is making any difference? Aside from a crazy rant by John Pilger and various comments in response to it, the blogosphere is (again) quiet on this issue. The Technorati graph is telling …

Alas, I can’t resist a concluding paragraph on the soccer, and my shock that the Socceroos did actually draw with Croatia. After that first goal on the free kick I was afraid all was lost, but the Aussies seemed to finally find some form — not a huge amount, but some — by the end of the first half. I went to sleep at half-time confident that my original prediction of Australia not getting past the first round was wrong. The post-match hype shows just how much everyone’s embraced soccer, even to the point of mad-cap ideas. Meanwhile, the poor old Japanese team were walloped by Ronaldo himself in a game that their media are calling “miserable”.

• Having just concluded a summit meeting with the leaders of the European Union, I’m amazed at how George Bush has changed to a concillatory tone, even to the point of affirming that he wants to close Guantanamo Bay. The gung-ho, “with us or against us” President of not long ago has clearly learnt some lessons — or maybe he’s started listening to advisers when they point out that cooperating with Europe is his only real option.
• Over in Dili, even Xanana is asking Mari Alkatiri to resign. Although there’s clearly evidence that the PM bears some responsibility for the current crisis, I doubt sacking him will achieve as much as people are hoping. The UN’s special rep claims the situation there is still fragile, and leadership changes won’t help if the Timorese government just plods along with the same policies.
• To other matters: it’s intrigued me how the mainstream media are taking to the world of new Web services and software. This AP article in the SMH article talks about Web browsers as if tabbed browsing and Dashboard-style widgets had only just been invented, and apparently Internet Explorer 6 is only just starting to “show signs of ageing”. But uninformed reporting aside, at least browser innovation is getting some air time in the mainstream press.
• Also in the world of software, Microsoft have announced a partnership with — of all people — the Creative Commons folks! Admittedly, all they are doing is offering an Office add-in to give documents CC licensing metadata, but even that would have been unthinkable for the Microsoft of a few years ago.

Overall, this is a stark contrast to the fairly scary stories that are filling the local media. Maybe the Australian journos who have invaded Dili are trying so hard to find front-page-worthy stories that what they’re uncovering is every single case of violence, rather than indicative samples of a large number of attacks …?

Even the bloke in charge of Australia’s troops (who’s done a remarkably diplomatic job talking to the media) thinks things are getting better, to the point of embarassing the Today show thismorning.

I shall conclude with a smattering of other posts: the Australian troops are being given some odd new rules in the wake of recent scandal, the potential long-term consequences for Australian foreign policy might not be very palatable, and Needlenose makes an interesting (albeit hugely oversimplified) point.

There’s also quite a bit of flak being thrown at the UN, particularly from over America way, because of their involvement in getting several Timorese police officers killed (see yesterday’s rather gruesome West Australian cover). Although I’m generally a UN supporter, the last person I spoke to who’d been to Dili did agree that the UN didn’t seem to be achieving much.

Over in Kiwi-land, debate centres on just what their troops are doing in Timor. My guess is the Clark government wanted to answer the Timorese call for help, which went out to Australia and NZ because we’re the local ‘Westerners’, as it were. By contrast, check out this view from the Philippines which reckons that country isn’t taking enough interest in the situation.

Also, more blogging from the streets of Dili can be found at Tumbleweed, Lookingglass View, and Dili-Dallying.