Social Democracy in East Timor by Rebecca Strating

Author:Rebecca Strating [Strating, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Ethnic Studies, General, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781317504238
Google: ufGoCgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-10-05T02:49:15+00:00

5 Institutions, leaders and elections

The success of East Timor’s political transition relied upon the development of institutions articulated in the Constitution.1 Institutions entail systems of stable operational rules that ‘define and defend values, norms, interests, identities and beliefs’.2 They are created through regular and consistent activities, and once established, have a ‘quasi-independent quality and sense of self or culture’.3 Constitutions matter for fostering democratic civil culture, setting appropriate patterns of behaviour and distributing political power to prevent authoritarianism or the emergence of other non-democratic structures and behaviours. As such, participatory and inclusive dynamics of constitutional-building were important for supporting constitutional legitimacy and establishing patterns of political behaviour necessary for the ‘habituation’ of state-based political institutions.

East Timor’s Constitution established rules regarding elections and the electoral system, articulated the parameters of legitimate activity and demarcated political power and responsibilities between the President, government, national parliament and courts within a semi-presidential system of governance. In so doing, East Timor’s elected Constituent Assembly sought to create an independent social democracy that would uphold rule of law and self-determination, provide social justice and economic development, and guarantee the human rights and freedoms of its people. In two crucial decisions, East Timor’s constitution-drafters chose a semi-presidential administrative system and Proportional Representation (PR) electoral system. These particular choices have consequences for forms of political participation and representation, and can determine whether a consensus- or majoritarian-oriented pattern of democracy is likely to emerge.

According to some perspectives, international state-building encouraged gaps between modern and traditional forms of governance that resulted in state-based institutions that were unable to ‘penetrate and reframe … many communities in Timor-Leste’.4 However, this reflects a tendency to underplay the important roles played by East Timorese elites in designing East Timor’s institutional framework, and the enduring vision of social democracy supported by East Timor’s civil society before and after the independence referendum. East Timor’s elections since 2001 have experienced a high degree of voter turnout and have been largely free from violence and intimidation, which represents a significant step in developing a democratic political culture in a territory marked by historical hostility between political parties.5

Upon independence, resistance leader Xanana Gusmão became East Timor’s first President after he attained an ‘overwhelming majority’ of votes in the presidential elections.6 The first Government of East Timor was formed by FRETILIN and there was a distinct risk that FRETILIN could become a dominant party. ‘Dominant’, ‘one-party’ or ‘hegemonic’ regimes have been problematic in other post-colonial states, including Cambodia which displays a form of ‘competitive authoritarianism’ in which elections are used to provide legitimacy to a non-democratic regime, government is not sufficiently accountable, responsible or responsive to constituents and civil liberties are curtailed. A similar form of one-party dominance of FRETILIN could have been detrimental to East Timor’s plural multi-party democracy; however, the analysis of the 2007 and 2012 elections in this chapter demonstrates that it avoided a one-party regime and competitive authoritarianism.

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