I was supposed to have written this post last Tuesday, the day after the second round of elections. However, at 8:30 am on Tuesday last I was told last minute that I would have to go to Dili to accompany the convoy carrying the final ballot box with Bobonaro's result for national tabulation. The convoy left two hours after, leaving me only with time to do my MOP - authorization required in peacekeeping missions for travel outside of your duty station - and a small suitcase for 3 days in Dili.
But I should really start at the beginning...
Sunday, April 15th, at 7am, the sun was out and Bobonaro STAE office was ready and set to deploy the ballot boxes to the 68 polling centres and 81 polling stations in the district. This time we were finally using helicopters, albeit some very stressing last minute changes with MOPs - for the use of helicopters, an MOP is like your ticket onboard, without it you don't fly so you can imagine how stressful it can be when I was missing 8 MOPs for the PNTL officers 20 minutes before flight! But all was sorted in the end and the helicopter came and went with the electoral materials to the two inacessible sites in Bobonaro, that was the fun part!
After I was done getting the helicopters sorted back to STAE I went to join the convoy to my other two assigned polling stations...unfortunately, I was too late and my convoy left without me...I ended up staying in Maliana on standby all day listening to the radio to hear the progress in dropping off the electoral material.
Monday, however, was another story. Election day for the second round in the presidential elections. Two candidates, both heroes in the war against the Indonesian invasion, both with military background but only with the backing of Xanana Gusmao. As soon as we heard that Xanana was giving his support to TMR, the outcome was obvious. This nation vibrates off of Xanana's emotions and political leanings. In Ainaro, for instance, my colleague told me that after Xanana came for a political rally people believed that he was the candidate, or otherwise, that it didn't matter if he was the candidate or not, whatever he said, went, the people are behind him. One old lady even said that she would stop voting after Xanana died, considering she was older than Xanana, I find that unlikely but she will continue her support for Xanana and whoever he backs, that's a certainty.
We started by going around Maliana monitoring the polling stations. Everything was calm and peaceful. We even got to accompany the mobile units, the ones that go to the hospitals so that patients and hospital staff can vote. We had one minor incident involving backing up into a motorcyle - it seems they do it on purpose even, they park their bikes right behind a car so that the car can't see (we were in the buffalo, our line of vision was completely impaired) and then they wait until it's too late and they ask for money, oh well, thank goodness the UN has insurance...After lunch, we were on our way to collect the ballot boxes and results from our assigned polling centres. I got two different ones this time, Lourba and Lour...in the last round, due to the rain, these two centres were on helicopter request so you can imagine the roads, or lack thereof, to actually get there! But get there we did, the counting was done well, the trainings that the polling staff had in between rounds definitely helped a lot! When the counting was done and we were set to go, dark clouds looming in the sky could be seen, making the descent down to Maliana very risky if they started to pour but luckily all they did was loom, no rain was seen all day, which was a welcome change from the first round. Everything realyl went a lot better this time, we were back in Maliana by 8pm! I was surprised when I was told by the CNE commissioner that the helicopters would not be required to pick up the ballot boxes from the inacessible places, they had all managed to get to Maliana by car...so much for inacessible!!! We were set to finish everything by 11-midnight at the max when the internet server went down and we had to wait for two excruciating hours - some of the staff even made makeshift beds with the cabin booths so they could sleep! By 2:30 internet was back, we were online and finished! All 68 polling centers were accounted for, the mistakes were minor and rather technical and everyone seemed happy with the results: TMR won with 70.01% of the vote and Lu'Olo trailed behing with a 29.99%. The results were mirrored in the rest of the country except for Baucau and Viqueque (Viqueque witness some burnt houses and stoning but it was expected, it's the only volatile district that blows at any election) , the two strongholds of Lu'Olo but otherwise no incidents were accounted on election day...
The next day, Tuesday, as I wrote earlier, we sped off to Dili, sometimes travelling at 120km an hour down very perilous roads, it was quite a show, barreling down the main avenue inDdili with 10 cars, half of them police with sirens and everything, into the CNE headquaters with the final Aktas bearing the results for Bobonaro district! Very exciting indeed!
The national results have by now been announced, Tuar Matan Ruak (TMR) won with a wide majority and Lu'Olo has accepted the results, peacefully and calmly, which is what the UN and the world needed to see, the proof that Timor Leste is ready for independent governance, ready for a new dawn.
But I should really start at the beginning...
Sunday, April 15th, at 7am, the sun was out and Bobonaro STAE office was ready and set to deploy the ballot boxes to the 68 polling centres and 81 polling stations in the district. This time we were finally using helicopters, albeit some very stressing last minute changes with MOPs - for the use of helicopters, an MOP is like your ticket onboard, without it you don't fly so you can imagine how stressful it can be when I was missing 8 MOPs for the PNTL officers 20 minutes before flight! But all was sorted in the end and the helicopter came and went with the electoral materials to the two inacessible sites in Bobonaro, that was the fun part!
After I was done getting the helicopters sorted back to STAE I went to join the convoy to my other two assigned polling stations...unfortunately, I was too late and my convoy left without me...I ended up staying in Maliana on standby all day listening to the radio to hear the progress in dropping off the electoral material.
Monday, however, was another story. Election day for the second round in the presidential elections. Two candidates, both heroes in the war against the Indonesian invasion, both with military background but only with the backing of Xanana Gusmao. As soon as we heard that Xanana was giving his support to TMR, the outcome was obvious. This nation vibrates off of Xanana's emotions and political leanings. In Ainaro, for instance, my colleague told me that after Xanana came for a political rally people believed that he was the candidate, or otherwise, that it didn't matter if he was the candidate or not, whatever he said, went, the people are behind him. One old lady even said that she would stop voting after Xanana died, considering she was older than Xanana, I find that unlikely but she will continue her support for Xanana and whoever he backs, that's a certainty.
We started by going around Maliana monitoring the polling stations. Everything was calm and peaceful. We even got to accompany the mobile units, the ones that go to the hospitals so that patients and hospital staff can vote. We had one minor incident involving backing up into a motorcyle - it seems they do it on purpose even, they park their bikes right behind a car so that the car can't see (we were in the buffalo, our line of vision was completely impaired) and then they wait until it's too late and they ask for money, oh well, thank goodness the UN has insurance...After lunch, we were on our way to collect the ballot boxes and results from our assigned polling centres. I got two different ones this time, Lourba and Lour...in the last round, due to the rain, these two centres were on helicopter request so you can imagine the roads, or lack thereof, to actually get there! But get there we did, the counting was done well, the trainings that the polling staff had in between rounds definitely helped a lot! When the counting was done and we were set to go, dark clouds looming in the sky could be seen, making the descent down to Maliana very risky if they started to pour but luckily all they did was loom, no rain was seen all day, which was a welcome change from the first round. Everything realyl went a lot better this time, we were back in Maliana by 8pm! I was surprised when I was told by the CNE commissioner that the helicopters would not be required to pick up the ballot boxes from the inacessible places, they had all managed to get to Maliana by car...so much for inacessible!!! We were set to finish everything by 11-midnight at the max when the internet server went down and we had to wait for two excruciating hours - some of the staff even made makeshift beds with the cabin booths so they could sleep! By 2:30 internet was back, we were online and finished! All 68 polling centers were accounted for, the mistakes were minor and rather technical and everyone seemed happy with the results: TMR won with 70.01% of the vote and Lu'Olo trailed behing with a 29.99%. The results were mirrored in the rest of the country except for Baucau and Viqueque (Viqueque witness some burnt houses and stoning but it was expected, it's the only volatile district that blows at any election) , the two strongholds of Lu'Olo but otherwise no incidents were accounted on election day...
The next day, Tuesday, as I wrote earlier, we sped off to Dili, sometimes travelling at 120km an hour down very perilous roads, it was quite a show, barreling down the main avenue inDdili with 10 cars, half of them police with sirens and everything, into the CNE headquaters with the final Aktas bearing the results for Bobonaro district! Very exciting indeed!
The national results have by now been announced, Tuar Matan Ruak (TMR) won with a wide majority and Lu'Olo has accepted the results, peacefully and calmly, which is what the UN and the world needed to see, the proof that Timor Leste is ready for independent governance, ready for a new dawn.
No comments:
Post a Comment