Timor-Leste's Challenged Political Process: 2016-17.

• Author: Kingsbury, Damien
• Position: Report

In its public communications over 2016 and 2017, the government of Timor-Leste highlighted the country's political and economic stability. The country had, indeed, been remarkably stable since the civil conflict of 2006-07, with the 20 March presidential and 22 July 2017 parliamentary elections being peaceful, good-natured and marking an uncontested handover of political power.

The 2017 elections also represented a reversal of the political fortunes of the Frente Revolucionaria de Timor-Leste Independente (Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, or Fretilin) since losing government to a coalition led by the Congresso Nacional de Reconstrucao de Timor (National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction, CNRT) in 2007 and marked the continuing evolution of Timor-Leste's democratic political process. Timor-Leste's stability was predicated upon three qualities: first, having a charismatic, broadly respected and somewhat wily (if technically unsophisticated (1)) political leader, Xanana Gusmao; second, that Timor-Leste was during 2007-17 governed by a majority government widely seen as legitimate; third, even if Timor-Leste's wealth was not equitably shared or sustainable, there was economic growth and, for a modest majority, an improvement in basic living conditions.

As 2017 unfolded, Timor-Leste appeared to be consolidating its democratic embrace. Medium to longer-term prospects for the country were, however, more ambiguous. This article argues that despite a decade of stability, the sense of material improvement has been limited for many people, compromised by corruption and superficial and unsustainable economic growth. Timor-Leste's social and political stability appeared vulnerable and its democracy therefore potentially fragile. The country's political stability was, by the end of 2017, in tatters, with claims of an attempted "coup" against its new government and a return to the bitter divisions that characterized the political environment a decade ago.

Consolidating Democracy

In one sense, Timor-Leste's 2017 elections marked a deepening and maturation of its political processes. The elections succeeded in achieving the "two-turnover test" that political scientist Samuel Huntingdon argued marked the "consolidation of democracy". (2) For the purpose of this article, "democracy" is understood to include competitive elections devoid of fraud, with universal suffrage, (3) basic civil liberties such as freedom of speech, assembly and association, (4) and an elected government with effective power to govern (i.e. institutional capacity). (5) Timor-Leste's elections were competitive, devoid of fraud and offered universal suffrage to all citizens over the age of 17. (6) Basic civil liberties were respected and the government exercised functional authority over its sovereign territory.

In particular, in relation to Timor-Leste's electoral institutions, the Comissao Nacional de Eleicoes (National Elections Commission, CNE) and the Secretariado Tecnico de Administracao Eleitoral (Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration, STAE), the country demonstrated that it had at least some well-developed institutional capacity. Timor-Leste therefore generally met the criteria for being a democracy, based on the "expanded procedural minimum" requirement. (7) Elsewhere, however, administrative capacity operated at a low level, with then Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao acknowledging the country's departments were often only able to execute about a third of their annual budgets. (8)

While Huntington acknowledged that democracies often faced challenges, he believed that democratic consolidation was possible. (9) This idea of democratic consolidation was, however, challenged by Guillermo O'Donnell, (10) who argued that many new democracies remained incomplete. According to Robert Dahl's criteria, such a process of democratic consolidation is also normally fragile and prone to failure. O'Donnell suggested that the notion of "consolidation" --implying the institutionalization of democracy (as defined above) --was based on a teleological assumption about the inevitability of democratic embeddedness which was, in turn, fundamentally flawed. O'Donnell proposed that no democracy was free of challenges, that democracies may become more or less democratic over time, and that they are all, to a greater or lesser extent, prone to overthrow or collapse. (11)

Broadly speaking, it would appear that a democracy is likely to be more successful and better sustained if there has been prior democratic experience, a coherent national identity, a common national language, uncontested territory, acceptance of regulated conflict resolution, non-involvement of the military in internal affairs, a medium to high per capita GDP, improved income equality and a relatively high literacy rate. (12) Timor-Leste had no prior democratic experience before 1999, has a significant gap between rich and poor and, having already once failed in its acceptance of regulated conflict resolution, appears prone to such weakness again. It has, however, largely met the other criteria for being a successful democracy.

Overcoming more structural impediments and passing the "two turnover test" by its fourth elections since formal independence was a significant achievement, albeit with a period of international intervention (2006-12) which helped to stabilize the country. Timor-Leste also enjoyed some democratic advantages, not least of which was a public commitment to the democratic process. However, structural challenges were significant and could easily worsen, while the question of how political actors would respond to their environment remained uncertain.

Development

Timor-Leste was developing a coherent national identity and consolidating its use of Tetum as the national language, and the military had withdrawn from earlier involvement in internal affairs (notably in 2006), which were positive indicators for democratization. However, the country also faced several structural impediments, including a lack of prior democratic experience and low per capita Gross National Income (GNI) of around US$1,500. That low GNI was, moreover, unevenly distributed. About 47 per cent of all East Timorese lived below the poverty line and a further 21.4 per cent lived near it. (13) This situation, which had improved over the reconstruction period following Indonesia's destructive withdrawal in 1999, had remained fairly stagnant since around 2008 and actually began to decline after 2012. (14)

While circumstances had improved for many people, when measured against the Inequality Human Development Index, Timor-Leste's human development indicators (HDIs) dropped from 0.605, or "Medium" HDI, to 0.416, or "Low" HDI between 2011 and 2016, a loss of 31.2 per cent. (15) Timor-Leste also had a relatively low level of literacy (55 per cent for women, 45 per cent for men). (16) Timor-Leste's HDIs did show improvement following the end of Indonesia's occupation, but received the biggest impetus for improvement after the 2007 elections and the subsequent injection of funds into parts of the economy, including to pay off dissident soldiers who had been sacked from the army, to compensate people whose homes had been destroyed during the 2006-07 riots, to provide modest pensions for veterans of the Indonesian occupation and the elderly and the provision of subsidized rice.

These factors had an immediate impact on the country's HDIs, with the under-five mortality rate dropping from 83 per 1,000 live births in 2000 to 57 by 2012, (17) the maternal mortality rate falling from 26 per 1,000 births to 9.4 by 2015, (18) and average life expectancy increasing from around 56 years in 2000 to 68.5 years by 2014. (19) The boost in government spending on modest pensions and subsidized food had an almost immediate impact on infant and maternal mortality as well as longevity. Timor-Leste's government increased spending from 2008, eventually rising to around US$1.5-1.6 billion, or approximately 200 per cent beyond the limit of sustainable withdrawals from the country's sovereign wealth "Petroleum Fund". Government spending accounted for about 92 per cent of all economic activity in the country. With the source of Petroleum Fund reducing as the Timor Sea oil wells began to run dry, it was estimated that at the then rates of spending, Timor-Leste would be bankrupt before 2030. (20)

Despite greatly expanding the budget, this increased spending programme was not evenly spread, with healthcare receiving just 4.2 per cent of Timor-Leste's budget in 2016-17. There is only one hospital in the capital Dili, and rudimentary hospitals in the next biggest towns of Baucau and Maliana, with basic health clinics in subdistrict capitals.

One proposed method for evening out development across the country was to decentralize some administrative functions. With the beginning of the decentralization of state functions to municipalities, Bobonaro (21) municipality president, Zeferino dos Santos, identified priorities, in order, as securing a consistent water supply, improving roads and increasing access to education; healthcare ran a distant fourth. (22) In a country where local water supplies are often seasonal, access to potable water is critical--about a third of East Timorese did not have access to clean drinking water--and related infrastructure remained underdeveloped. (23) Education also remained basic, particularly in outlying villages. Human development in Timor-Leste peaked around 2012, being ranked 133 of 188 countries and declining slightly thereafter. (24) This stagnation and then decline of standards of living, set against the perception of rising corruption, was not lost on Timor-Leste's voters.

Corruption

Unlike health and education, infrastructure, and especially roads, had been a major government priority. A few days before the 2017 presidential election, several metres of an expensive new section of the...