Bobonaro has voted, its people have voted and, not so surprisingly, CNRT, Xanana's party has pulled a whopping 37.65%, trailed far behind by FRETILIN with 17.77%, and PD with 14.53%. These are only the provisional results for Bobonaro district. We have to wait now until the end of the week for the national tabulation to be completed with the final results for Timor-Leste.
We finished the tabulation this morning, after more than 16 hours of counting 'actas'. Luckily, we got a pause last night at 01:40 so we managed to sleep a bit before continuing on.
For me, this was my easiest round. I didn't think that would be the case when I found out which polling centres I had been assigned. As I mentioned in the previous post, we had an additional 6 polling stations so we needed more cars. At the last minute before the deployment began on Friday morning we got the go-ahead from UN to use another car, but with a UN car you need a UN driver so one of our teams had to split up and it fell on the two logistics officers, myself included, to do it. I got assigned Poerema and Atudara Foho in Cailaco sub-district...the funny thing is that these two are actually on the inaccessible list and we needed to use a helicopter to get to them last time round!
I was, therefore, needless to say, in awe of the road I had ahead of me on Friday when I went to distribute the ballot boxes. At one point we veered off the paved road onto a dirt road high up in the mountains of Bobonaro. Some of the hills would put my car at a near 90 degree angle and it was quite unnerving to look in my rear-view mirror and only see sky, deep blue sky behind me! However, the deployment went off without a hitch, I was accompanied by PNTL and CNE cars so no worries about getting lost on my way. I was actually the first one back to headquarters on Friday! I was concerned, however, about doing those hills at night the next day, knowing that the counting process would probably take much longer than the last two times given the amount of candidates. Those hills were treacherous and very easy to slide into oblivion with one wrong turn of the wheel!
But no, election day went off in Bobonaro district without a hitch. Both of my polling stations were finished by 5pm. It was a bit hard, however, coming back from them; with 10 people in the car and all the ballot boxes and voting cabins, my car was having hard time going up those hills, I actually had to drive on low gear for half of the way so it was slow trip back to Maliana but other than that everything on my end went off perfectly. And in Bobonaro as a whole, the stations opened and closed on time, and minus a few human or technical errors there were no mistakes in the counting. We heard there were a few disturbances, there was fight in front of one of the polling stations, in Soelesu, where I had been assigned for the first round of presidential elections but other than that all was calm, peaceful. And at one point we got word that two people had been kidnapped on the road! However, the latter was never confirmed...
I arrived again quite early in Maliana, I didn't even need to wait for a convoy this time, it was just my car and the PNTL car escorting me. The day, which had been clad with imminent rain up in the mountains, turned into such a magnificent sunset that I had to keep bringing my eyes back on the road coming down from fear of driving off the edge! I was the second car to arrive back with the ballot boxes which allowed me to witness the entire tabulation process for the first time. I got the feeling that the people were happy with the results in their stations. Tired, exhausted and with red eyes from too many nights of watching over the ballot boxes our STAE colleagues carried on with their jobs. By the time we had 5 boxes we could start the process, with CNE, international and national observers as well as the representatives from each political party present as witnesses.
Our night however, was not to end happily. By around 10pm we started hearing that there had been an accident. This accident, serious in nature, was eventually confirmed. One PNTL car, coming back from Lolotoe sub-district, just as it was entering Maliana, veered on its side and crashed. It was a pick-up truck so all the officers in the back were thrown off the car. One died on impact and 3 others were seriously wounded by the time we got all the details. Later on, at 2am we heard the helicopter come. UN doesn't have the authorization to fly at night so it was ISF (International Stabilisation Force) that was able to come and collect the wounded to take them to Dili, however, another PNTL was pronounced dead even before getting in the helicopter. The other was medevac to Dili and is in critical condition with very little change of surviving and we have 3 more in the hospital in Maliana in the intensive care. Today, we found out that one the PNTL that died is the brother of one of our national STAE colleagues. He was 38, with 5 children and another one on the way. it was a very sad ending to such a momentous and historic occasion.
But in all, I am proud of Bobonaro and what its citizens have accomplished. It's a been a long road since independence and they have proved themselves capable of tolerance, peace and democracy. This makes me very happy; it should make the Timorese and the rest of the world very happy. The Timorese have spoken and their voices have been heard. They have fought for independence, they have fought for democracy and they have it!
Ba frente Timor!
P.S. It is now 6:50pm on Sunday and the results are as follows: CNRT has already 30 seats, FRETILIN has 25 and PD 8. FRENTI-MUDANCA has the remaining 2 - there are 65 seats in parliament...This is dangerous on many grounds! If FRETILIN and PD form a coalition - which they have already mentioned was a possibility - they will have enough seats to form a majority government, which will mean that the same thing that happened in 2007 will happen again: the party with the most votes failed to form a government. What could also happen is that the President, TMR, could ask CNRT to form a government - it was after all Xanana who backed his election in the presidential round - even if PD and FRETILIN came forth with a majority, which could also mean trouble. PD could also form a coalition with CNRT, which would be the best case scenario, but at this moment, anything can happen! Tensions are rising and you find people in corners discussing the likely outcomes... I hope, however, that the Timorese have learnt their lesson, I hope they understand what would happen with these three scenarios if they are not treaded lightly and with care. Please let them have the maturity to be wise in their decisions and please let the people understand!
We finished the tabulation this morning, after more than 16 hours of counting 'actas'. Luckily, we got a pause last night at 01:40 so we managed to sleep a bit before continuing on.
For me, this was my easiest round. I didn't think that would be the case when I found out which polling centres I had been assigned. As I mentioned in the previous post, we had an additional 6 polling stations so we needed more cars. At the last minute before the deployment began on Friday morning we got the go-ahead from UN to use another car, but with a UN car you need a UN driver so one of our teams had to split up and it fell on the two logistics officers, myself included, to do it. I got assigned Poerema and Atudara Foho in Cailaco sub-district...the funny thing is that these two are actually on the inaccessible list and we needed to use a helicopter to get to them last time round!
I was, therefore, needless to say, in awe of the road I had ahead of me on Friday when I went to distribute the ballot boxes. At one point we veered off the paved road onto a dirt road high up in the mountains of Bobonaro. Some of the hills would put my car at a near 90 degree angle and it was quite unnerving to look in my rear-view mirror and only see sky, deep blue sky behind me! However, the deployment went off without a hitch, I was accompanied by PNTL and CNE cars so no worries about getting lost on my way. I was actually the first one back to headquarters on Friday! I was concerned, however, about doing those hills at night the next day, knowing that the counting process would probably take much longer than the last two times given the amount of candidates. Those hills were treacherous and very easy to slide into oblivion with one wrong turn of the wheel!
But no, election day went off in Bobonaro district without a hitch. Both of my polling stations were finished by 5pm. It was a bit hard, however, coming back from them; with 10 people in the car and all the ballot boxes and voting cabins, my car was having hard time going up those hills, I actually had to drive on low gear for half of the way so it was slow trip back to Maliana but other than that everything on my end went off perfectly. And in Bobonaro as a whole, the stations opened and closed on time, and minus a few human or technical errors there were no mistakes in the counting. We heard there were a few disturbances, there was fight in front of one of the polling stations, in Soelesu, where I had been assigned for the first round of presidential elections but other than that all was calm, peaceful. And at one point we got word that two people had been kidnapped on the road! However, the latter was never confirmed...
I arrived again quite early in Maliana, I didn't even need to wait for a convoy this time, it was just my car and the PNTL car escorting me. The day, which had been clad with imminent rain up in the mountains, turned into such a magnificent sunset that I had to keep bringing my eyes back on the road coming down from fear of driving off the edge! I was the second car to arrive back with the ballot boxes which allowed me to witness the entire tabulation process for the first time. I got the feeling that the people were happy with the results in their stations. Tired, exhausted and with red eyes from too many nights of watching over the ballot boxes our STAE colleagues carried on with their jobs. By the time we had 5 boxes we could start the process, with CNE, international and national observers as well as the representatives from each political party present as witnesses.
Our night however, was not to end happily. By around 10pm we started hearing that there had been an accident. This accident, serious in nature, was eventually confirmed. One PNTL car, coming back from Lolotoe sub-district, just as it was entering Maliana, veered on its side and crashed. It was a pick-up truck so all the officers in the back were thrown off the car. One died on impact and 3 others were seriously wounded by the time we got all the details. Later on, at 2am we heard the helicopter come. UN doesn't have the authorization to fly at night so it was ISF (International Stabilisation Force) that was able to come and collect the wounded to take them to Dili, however, another PNTL was pronounced dead even before getting in the helicopter. The other was medevac to Dili and is in critical condition with very little change of surviving and we have 3 more in the hospital in Maliana in the intensive care. Today, we found out that one the PNTL that died is the brother of one of our national STAE colleagues. He was 38, with 5 children and another one on the way. it was a very sad ending to such a momentous and historic occasion.
But in all, I am proud of Bobonaro and what its citizens have accomplished. It's a been a long road since independence and they have proved themselves capable of tolerance, peace and democracy. This makes me very happy; it should make the Timorese and the rest of the world very happy. The Timorese have spoken and their voices have been heard. They have fought for independence, they have fought for democracy and they have it!
Ba frente Timor!
P.S. It is now 6:50pm on Sunday and the results are as follows: CNRT has already 30 seats, FRETILIN has 25 and PD 8. FRENTI-MUDANCA has the remaining 2 - there are 65 seats in parliament...This is dangerous on many grounds! If FRETILIN and PD form a coalition - which they have already mentioned was a possibility - they will have enough seats to form a majority government, which will mean that the same thing that happened in 2007 will happen again: the party with the most votes failed to form a government. What could also happen is that the President, TMR, could ask CNRT to form a government - it was after all Xanana who backed his election in the presidential round - even if PD and FRETILIN came forth with a majority, which could also mean trouble. PD could also form a coalition with CNRT, which would be the best case scenario, but at this moment, anything can happen! Tensions are rising and you find people in corners discussing the likely outcomes... I hope, however, that the Timorese have learnt their lesson, I hope they understand what would happen with these three scenarios if they are not treaded lightly and with care. Please let them have the maturity to be wise in their decisions and please let the people understand!
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