Timor: Xanana Gusmao Has Unbeatable Election Lead

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

AP via The Star (Malaysia) - Tuesday, April 16, 2002
http://www.thestar.com.my

Xanana Gusmao takes unassailable lead in Timor elections

DILI, East Timor (AP) - Former guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao has
taken an unassailable lead in East Timor's first presidential
elections, according to preliminary results released Tuesday.

With 89 percent of the 378,538 votes counted, Xanana was leading with
79.4 percent, according to calculations based on data released by the
electoral commission.

His sole challenger, Francisco Xavier do Amaral, trailed far behind
with 17 percent. Remaining ballots were ruled invalid.

United Nations electoral officials refused to comment on the results.
The official winner will be announced at noon on Wednesday.

"We won,'' said Milena Pires, Gusmao's campaign manger. "We have
around 80 percent already, which is an excellent achievement.''

Do Amaral, who said he was only running to provide the electorate a
choice, has no immediate plans to concede defeat, his supporters
said. But a crowd of supporters, sitting under a Banyan tree outside
their candidate's seafront office, appeared resigned to the fact that
their candidate would lose.

The elections are the final step in East Timor's long and bloody
struggle to break free of foreign rule. On May 20, East Timor will
become the world's newest independent country when its transitional
U.N. administration formally hands over the running of the country.

At Dili counting center, dozens of election officials worked through
the night tallying the votes cast.

Gusmao, who has long been the overwhelming favorite to win the
ballot, was resting at home on Tuesday, his aides said. He had no
plans to claim victory until Wednesday, they said.

The United Nations has been overseeing the country since it voted
overwhelmingly to break free from Indonesia in a U.N. referendum in
August 1999.

After that plebiscite, the Indonesian military and pro-Jakarta
militiamen killed hundreds of people and destroyed much of the
territory in a systematic campaign of revenge. The violence only
stopped a month later when international peacekeepers arrived.

Gusmao led East Timor's guerrilla army against Indonesia's occupation
forces. He was captured in 1992 and kept in a Jakarta jail for seven
years.

Do Amaral served as president for nine days after four centuries of
Portuguese colonial rule collapsed and before Indonesia invaded on
Dec. 7, 1975.

Meanwhile, preparations were being made to fly to Dublin the body of
an Irish peacekeeper killed in an accidental shooting.

Pvt. Peadar Flaherty, 21, from County Galway, died Sunday after he
was shot in the head during a patrol along East Timor's border with
Indonesia, Capt. David Harris said.

There are 42 Irish soldiers serving in East Timor as part of the
5,000 strong U.N. force.


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