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Timor Leste heads to the polls in parliamentary election
Sunday's poll is the country's fifth parliamentary election since Timor Leste gained full independence in 2002 following decades-long occupation by Indonesia.
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Former East Timorese leader Xanana Gusmao gestures after voting during the general election in Dili, on May 21, 2023.
(AFP/VALENTINO DARIEL SOUSA )
V
oters in Timor Leste headed to the polls on Sunday in a parliamentary election that analysts said would likely see two resistance-era figures battle to be prime minister.
Sunday's poll is the country's fifth parliamentary election since Timor Leste gained full independence in 2002 following decades-long occupation by Indonesia.
José Maria Vasconcelos, who has been prime minister since 2018, is backed a four-party coalition led by the Revolutionary Front for an Independent Timor-Leste (FRETILIN). Analysts do not expect him to be appointed as PM again.
Seventeen parties are competing in the election but two, the National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT), led by independence hero Xanana Gusmao, and FRETILIN, led by resistance figure Mari Alkatiri, are expected to dominate.
The next PM is expected to be Gustmao or Alkatiri, depending whose party wins.
Timor Leste has in recent years grappled with diversifying its oil- and gas-dependent economy.
"Xanana Gusmao has been in the opposition for the past three years and is trying to get back into power," Michael Leach of Australia's Swinburne University said of the country's former president and prime minister.
