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Timor Leste Nobel laureate Ramos-Horta to run for president again
The presidential election will be held on March 19, with the winner taking office on May 20.
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ormer Timor Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta on Sunday announced he would run for the top job again in the upcoming election, a decade after the end of his first term.
The 72-year-old was a critical figure in Timor Leste's independence struggle, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 along with Carlos Filipe Ximines Belo.
The presidential election will be held on March 19, with the winner taking office on May 20, the day Timor Leste celebrates its 20th anniversary of independence from Indonesia.
Ramos-Horta's candidacy was announced at a meeting held by the National Congress of the Reconstruction of Timor-Leste (CNRT), a political party led by the charismatic former president Xanana Gusmao.
"I am carrying out what has been entrusted to me by CNRT party and the people of Timor Leste to run in the 2022-2027 presidential election," Horta said after the congress.
Gusmao added: "Let's together support Horta to the presidential palace."
Ramos-Horta served as the president of Southeast Asia's youngest country from 2007 to 2012 and as prime minister from 2006 to 2007.
He will go against several other candidates including the outgoing president Francisco "Lu-Olo" Guterres and former Catholic priest Martinho Germano da Silva Gusmao.
Incumbent Guterres, from the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor Party (Fretilin), announced his candidacy on Jan. 16 while Gusmao said he would run in the election after Pope Francis revoked the priesthood status of the diocesan priest last November, clearing his path to run in the election.
Catholic-majority Timor Leste, a former Portuguese colony, announced its independence in 2002 after a 24-year long occupation by Indonesia.
The country's major political events have often been marred by chaos and violence.
In 2018 more than a dozen were injured and several cars were torched after a clash broke out between Fretilin and CNRT supporters.
Dozens were killed in 2006 as political rivalries turned into open conflict on the streets of the capital, Dili.
