DILI (TOP) – CNRT party has won elections twice, namely presidential elections and parliamentary elections. The results of these two elections did not suddenly fall from the sky or were given free of charge, but were obtained through the hard work of the party president, Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão with his secretary general Dato Sri Francisco Kalbuadi Lay and others.
General election is the process of electing people to fill certain political positions. These positions vary, ranging from president, people's representatives at various levels of government, to village chiefs. In a broader context, elections can also mean the process of filling positions such as student council president or class president, although for this the word ' election' is used more often.
Elections are one of the efforts to influence the people persuasively (not forcing) by carrying out rhetorical activities, public relations, mass communication, lobbying and other activities. Although agitation and propaganda in democratic countries are highly criticized, in general election campaigns, agitation and propaganda techniques are widely used by candidates or politicians as political communicators.
In elections, voters in elections are also called constituents, and it is to them that election participants offer their promises and programs during the campaign period. The campaign was carried out during a predetermined time, leading up to voting day.
After voting is done, the counting process begins. Election winners are determined by the rules of the game or a winner-determination system that has previously been determined and approved by the participants, and socialized to the voters.
In developed countries, especially Western countries, competition for votes in general elections is considered a good alternative to determine the figure of a political leader who has responsibility for his voters. In this case a political party and a legislative candidate as well as prime minister candidate cannot be separated.
Behind its success in winning the presidential and parliamentary elections, the CNRT party has a loyal support base in a number of municipalities. And also the combined strategy between Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão and Francisco Kalbuadi Lay regarding the party consolidation process starting from the aldeia to the municipal level.
Xanana was a strategist for the war against the Indonesian military for 24 years in the jungle, while Francisco Kalbuadi Lay was a great football player who knew how to form a consolidation strategy up to a national campaign whose end result made the CNRT party win in the presidential election in 2022 until the election parliamentary election 2023.
Moreover, Xanana has experience leading Timor-Leste for 10 years. Not surprisingly, the sound acquisition was able to win more than 30 seats when compared to its competitors.
Having ruled for ten years, Xanana also controlled various kinds of infrastructure in the government, so that his strength was difficult to beat.
Xanana himself won many votes because he dared to oppose the government's and WHO's policies regarding funeral procedures for Covid-19 victims in 2021.
In his campaign, Xanana promised to spend whatever money to decentralize and develop the national economy.
When the government began imposing a lock down throughout Timor-Leste's territory in early 2020, Xanana became the first leader to help the government socialize Covid-19 prevention measures to people in border areas because according to him, this virus came from abroad, not within the country.
At that time, he was not only directing people to stay away from Covid-19 but also while doing charity work for poor families.
Meanwhile, other leaders from other parties, such as the Secretary General of the FRETILIN party, Mari Bim Amude Alkatiri, are still living quietly at his residence.
In mid-2021, the winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, José Ramos-Horta, also joined with Xanana to do the same thing, and work together to find ways to ask for masks and vaccines from other countries. Their collaboration produced good results when received thousands of SINOVAC and ASTRAZENECA vaccines from several neighboring countries.
But before that, Horta considered Xanana's activities during the pandemic as something extraordinary because in times of crisis like this, the community really needed visits from leaders to strengthen them in how to fight in critical situations.
Lú Olo and Taur try to isolate Xanana
After the seventh government led by the prime minister, Mari Bim Amude Alkatiri, collapsed in 2017, re-elections were immediately held which were won by the coalition parties, CNRT, PLP and KHUNTO in 2018. However, when submitting a cabinet structure to the President of the Republic, Francisco Guterres Lú Olo refused to swear in the CNRT party ministerial candidates.
This rejection began to create political instability in Timor-Leste. And President Lú Olo also began to receive criticism from various corners of the world including from former president José Ramos-Horta because of the massive and systematic violations of the RDTL constitution.
When President Lú Olo announced the date for the presidential elections in 2022, the CNRT party led by Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão with the coordination of Secretary General Dato Sri Francisco Kalbuadi Lay began to look at their figure to represent the CNRT party in the presidential election.
The CNRT party, appointed and supported the figure of José Ramos-Horta as their strong candidate and managed to win the first round of presidential elections but did not reach 50% more according to the electoral system in Timor-Leste. Then they went to the second round of elections, immediately won unanimously, and ousted the President of the FRETILIN party, Francisco Guterres Lú Olo from his presidential throne.
The results of the 2022 presidential election did not come for free but were the result of the CNRT party's hard work and political investment since 2020 and 2021 where Xanana and Horta have visited all communities in all corners of Timor-Leste to see and hear their grievances during the critical situation at that time.
Preparations before the 2023 parliamentary elections
After the inauguration of President-elect José Ramos-Horta on 20 May 2022 in Tasi-Tolu, and in early June 2022 the CNRT party began to carry out the opening of consolidation activities in Dili which invited all party coordinators from 13 municipalities to attend to hear and accept the political orientation of party president Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão.
The process of consolidating the CNRT party for ten months in a marathon from June 2022 to March 2023 has been led by party Secretary General Dato Sri Francisco Kalbuadi Lay. The message or political orientation conveyed during the consolidation period was about Human Fraternity (Fraternidade Humana), and must work hard to bring back party president Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão to Palácio do Governo as prime minister for the ninth government.
The results of this hard work have brought good results where the provisional result showed a clear victory for the CNRT, which resulted in a likely majority in the National Parliament together with the PD. The platform of the old ruling parties, Fretilin, KHUNTO and PLP, will probably only get 28 of the 65 seats, less than the CNRT alone.
Gusmão's National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT) won about 42% of ballots cast with 100% of the votes counted, according to election commission.
The Revolution Front for an Independent Timor-Leste (FRETILIN), the party of Prime Minister José Maria Vasconcelos, popularly known as Taur Matan Ruak, was second with about 26% of the votes, with the rest split among 15 parties.
Sunday's contest was the fifth parliamentary election since East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste, a country of 1.3 million people that gained full independence in 2002 after a quarter-century rule by neighbouring Indonesia.
The former Portuguese colony must now wait to see who will be chosen as prime minister by the newly formed legislature.
The election had been billed as a battle of two former resistance figures, CNRT's Gusmão, 76, and FRETILIN's Mari Alkatiri, 73, with Gusmão seen by analysts as the favourite.
Heavily dependent on its fast-depleting oil reserves for revenue, the half-island nation faces a challenge with poverty and diversifying its economy, which at $3.6 billion is one of Asia's smallest.
The election follows last year's victory in a presidential ballot for independence leader and Nobel laureate José Ramos-Horta, also of the CNRT party.
Gusmão, a former guerrilla leader, was East Timor's first president and served as prime minister from 2007 until his resignation from the post in 2015.
The election was held on Sunday morning to avoid overlapping with the anniversary of Timor-Leste's restoration of independence in 2002, which was commemorated on Saturday. After twenty-one years, the young nation has distinguished itself as one of Southeast Asia's most democratic, with a Press Freedom Index score that exceeds its neighbor, Australia.
Xanana and Horta are ideal partners
José Ramos-Horta's victory as president-elect in 2022 is the victory of the CNRT party in 2023. Horta won the presidency again because of the full support of the CNRT party. the results of the first round had shown that CNRT would win the parliamentary elections, and it was proven.
Since 1989, Xanana has criticized the Australian government for its agreement with Indonesia to share the natural wealth in the Timor Sea. This agreement between the two countries was criticized by Xanana while still hiding with his FALINTIL members in Mount Bunaria, Ainaro. And Ramos-Horta as his special representative at the UN headquarters in New York, United States during the period of national resistance.
Almost all Timorese people believe that these two leaders will accelerate the process of national development and bring Timor-Leste out of the threat of a fiscal cliff.
The secret that made the CNRT party win the presidential and parliamentary elections was firstly that Xanana used a humanist approach, drew closer to ordinary people in critical situations, and his party structure, starting from the Secretary General and his members, always worked hard.
Although the CNRT currently only has 31 seats in the national parliament, it has not yet opened the door for negotiations with other parties to form a government coalition, nor has it formulated a cabinet structure.
People still love Xanana
Since the CNRT party was founded in 2007, it immediately won the elections at that time and formed a coalition government led by Prime Minister Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão. In the 2012 elections, people still voted for the CNRT party, and in 2015 Xanana resigned from his position as prime minister and appointed former health minister Rui Maria de Araújo as his replacement until 2016.
The FRETILIN party then used Xanana's resignation as one of the most powerful weapons in the 2017 political campaign, and the result was that FRETILIN won the elections at that time but did not have a majority in the National Parliament and finally collapsed that year because the opposition parties consisting of CNRT, KHUNTO and PLP had blocking government plans and budgets.
Actually, according to the constitution, if the minority government falls, the President of the Republic must summon the second winning party to form a government, but this did not happen because the President of the FRETILIN Party, who was also the President of the Republic at that time, immediately announced the second round of elections which was won by the coalition party.
Even though the people are still loyal to the CNRT party or loyal to Xanana, Lú Olo apparently hasn't moved on with the defeat of the FRETILIN party in the 2018 elections, so he has refused to swear in nine cabinet candidates from the CNRT party in June 2018. Lú Olo's decision is which then opened wide domestic political instability. With this, society punished him by not voting for him in the 2022 presidential election.
Before entering the parliamentary election, three political parties consisting of PLP, KHUNTO and FRETILIN formed an understanding platform to fight against the CNRT party, the result was that the three parties lost in the election because FRETILIN only got 19 seats, PLP got 4 seats, and KHUNTO party got 5. The total seats won by these three parties were only 28 seats, while the CNRT party itself won 31 seats. These results show that the people are still loyal to the CNRT or are still loyal to the figure of Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão who is known as a charismatic leader and has a low heart for all people in Timor-Leste since the Indonesian colonial era until now.
Xanana promised all of his voters that if the CNRT party won the elections his government would give first priority to decentralization or bringing his government closer to the people, the second priority would be to improve the lives of the surviving heroes who dared to choose the independence option in 1999, and the third priority would be prosperity the disabled. And the last priority is to improve the life of the country's economic wheel, starting from the micro-economy to the macro-economy. Developing the oil and gas fields in Greater Sunrise is one of the big priorities of the CNRT party so far, including bringing the pipeline to Timor-Leste.
According to the agenda, the President of the Republic José Ramos-Horta will inaugurate or legitimize a new government in June 2023.
