AP News, May 9th, 2007
East Timor voted Wednesday for a new president, choosing between a Nobel Prize winner and an ex-freedom fighter in polls critical to maintaining peace a year after the nation was pushed to the brink of civil war.
The winner will have to heal deep divisions in Asia's newest and poorest nation, where many people are disillusioned eight years after voting for independence from decades of brutal Indonesian rule in a U.N-organized referendum.
More than 524,000 people are eligible to vote in the polls, which pit Nobel prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta against Francisco "Lu-Olo" Guterres, an former guerrilla turned politician who spent years in the jungles fighting Indonesian rule.
"I will become the Timorese president to serve the people, resolve the crisis and establish peace and democracy," said Guterres, who is seen by most analysts as the underdog in what may turn out to be a tight race.
"I want to win with dignity, but if I lose, I will also accept that with dignity," he said after voting.
Wednesday's vote for the largely ceremonial post follows first-round balloting last month that ended without an outright winner. Campaigning has been peaceful for the second round, but some fear fresh unrest when the results are announced, expected by late Friday.
Ramos-Horta, 57, cast his ballot in a town east of Dili after lining up with fellow voters in the mostly Roman Catholic nation. He said afterward he was "totally relaxed."
"If I win the election, I win a ... huge responsibility," said Ramos-Horta, who wore a T-shirt with an image of Jesus Christ on it. "But if I lose, I win my freedom to do whatever I want, to be a writer, to be an academic, to be a tourist, to travel."
Polling stations closed in late afternoon and officials began counting the votes.
Officials had to deliver some ballots on horseback because the locations were so remote, the election commission said.
East Timor descended into chaos last year after then-Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri fired a third of the army following a mutiny, provoking gunbattles between rival security forces that spiraled into gang warfare and looting.
At least 37 people were killed and some 155,000 fled their homes before the government collapsed. A 1,200-strong Australian-led peacekeeping force has since restored order and, along with a similar-sized contingent of U.N. police officers, now provides national security.
Ramos-Horta _ who won his Nobel for promoting East Timorese independence during his time in exile during the occupation _ is regarded as the favorite, chiefly because five losing candidates in the first round of voting are urging their supporters to back him.
But Guterres, 52, is backed by Fretilin, the well-organized political party of the nation's former armed resistance to Jakarta's rule. He has fought a hard campaign, portraying himself as a man of the people in contrast to Ramos-Horta's image as a foreign-educated intellectual.
East Timor is one of the poorest nations in Asia, with average per capita income of less than a dollar a day and an unemployment rate estimated at 50 percent. One-third of the population experiences regular food shortages, the World Food Program said, while some 60 percent of children under 5 suffer malnutrition.
