East Timor 2018
The population of East Timor in 2018 was estimated to be around 1,396,000 people. The majority of the population is comprised of people of Austronesian and Melanesian descent, with a smaller percentage of other Southeast Asian ethnicities. The economy is largely reliant on agriculture, fishing and petroleum production. Foreign relations remain strong with East Timor’s neighbors in the Southeast Asian region as well as other countries in the Americas and Europe. According to extrareference, East Timor has been a parliamentary democracy since 2002. In 2018, President Francisco Guterres was re-elected for a second consecutive term after his party won 57% of the popular vote in presidential elections held that year.
Yearbook 2018
Timor. After the minority government’s budget was voted down twice in the fall of 2017, East Timor President Francisco Guterres dissolved in January and re-announced elections.
According to Countryaah.com, Dili is the capital city of Timor-Leste, a country located in Southeastern Asia. The election was held in May, just under ten months after the last election. Last year’s results were very evenly between the country’s two largest parties Fretilin and CNRT, with a marginal overweight for Fretilin who formed a minority government with the Democratic Party.
- According to Abbreviationfinder: RTL is an three letter acronym for East Timor.
In this year’s election campaign, the main candidates were Fretilin and the alliance AMP (Alliance for Change and Development), which consisted of the parties CNRT, PLP and the newly formed Khunto. The electoral movement was dominated by promises to lift the agricultural and tourism sectors and to improve the country’s education and health care.
In the election, the AMP won 34 of the Parliament’s 65 seats. 23 mandates went to Fretilin, according to data from ElectionGuide. The turnout was 86.1%.
In June, President Guterres Taur Matan Ruak appointed new Prime Minister. Ruak belonged to the AMP alliance and has previously been guerrilla leader, defense minister and country president between 2012 and 2017. The new government’s political program was approved by Parliament in July.
During the spring, the conflict between Australia and East Timor came to an end as to how the gas and oil-rich Timor Sea assets should be distributed once an agreement between the countries was signed at the UN office in New York in March. The case was raised by the Permanent Arbitration Court in The Hague last year, which then ordered a compelling settlement between the parties. The agreement meant that the gas reserves that exist in the Greater Sunrise field in the Timor Sea and which were bound during the ongoing conflict could begin to be recovered. Greater Sunrise gas was estimated to be worth $ 65 billion, according to Reuters news agency, which stated that between 70 and 80% of the profits from gas extraction would go to East Timor.
East Timor
A state of Southeast Asia, in the archipelago of the Lesser Sunda Islands, which occupies the eastern section. the island of Timor, the island of Atauro and the islet of Jaco; it also includes the district of Oecussi, in the northwestern coastal area. of Timor, which constitutes an exclave in Indonesian territory. Colony of Portugal, after the proclamation of independence (1975) East Timor was invaded by Indonesian troops, who occupied the region claiming the sovereignty of Indonesia also over the eastern part of the island. In the ag. 1976, East Timor was officially declared the 27th province of Indonesia. Despite the repeated condemnations of the UN and international organizations for the defense of human rights, the civilian population and the Fretilin (Frente revolucionária do Timor Leste independente), the political organization that had led the country to independence, continued to be the object of a harsh repression by the government of Jakarta, which accompanied acts of brutal oppression to a massive immigration program aimed at “diluting” the local community, mainly Christian, elite Muslim and indigenous filoindonesiana. After the crisis of the Suharto regime (May 1998) the independence movement regained strength, while the new Indonesian president BJ Habibie started diplomatic talks with Portugal. On Jan. 1999, also following pressure from the United Nations, Habibie announced his readiness to grant independence to the region if a referendum rejected the government’s plan to grant East Timor ample autonomy, but within the Indonesian state. The popular consultation, held under the aegis of the UN in 1999, marked the large victory of the separatists. Despite Habibie’s claim to accept the result, Indonesian militias unleashed a bloody reaction by setting fire to the entire territory and deporting thousands of Timorese to the western part of the island. However, pressured by international public opinion and in particular by the United States, Habibie was forced to accept the dispatch of a UN peacekeeping force, while the Indonesian Parliament ratified the outcome of the referendum. and arranged for the withdrawal of the army. Pending the establishment of a local government, East Timor came under the interim administration of the United Nations at the end of 1999. In 2002 X. Gusmao asserted himself in the first presidential elections and independence was proclaimed; at the same time, the UN sent the UNMISET mission (United Nations mission of support in East Timor) to the country, with the task of assisting and supporting local authorities in the first steps of the new state. In 2005 East Timor and Indonesia signed an agreement for the definitive delimitation of the borders; soon after, the UN peacekeepers left the country. However, the difficult social situation and the outbreak of serious street violence led to the return of foreign contingents in 2006. In 2007 the presidential elections were won by the Nobel Peace Prize J. Ramos-Horta. In subsequent parliamentary elections, Fretilin obtained a relative majority, without having control of the Assembly. A stalemate began, resolved in the summer of 2007 with the appointment of Gusmao as prime minister.
