Some Random Thoughts on Elections and My Research

It's been too long since I posted something hehttp://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5917030042506161999#editor/target=post;postID=8213756244146735800re.

It's been a busy time since I got back from my 'holiday' in Bali. Wasn't much of a break; wasn't long enough to really have a chance to unwind and relax properly. Wish I could have taken another week. Time and financial restraints made this pretty much unfeasible. Sigh. Only two months to go before I come back. Gone so quickly.

I've spent most of my time doing research for, and entering the data into, a website that will serve as an online database on the various layers of leadership in Timor-Leste. It's called the Global Leadership Project. It hasn't been launched yet, I think it will be accessible to the public near the end of June or early July, I'll let you know. The first task was to get population data - thanks to the CIA World Factbook - and then break it down into several categories. These included: language, ethnicity, religion, and ethnocultural groups. The tricky part were the language and ethnocultural groups.

At last count I think I identified 19 distinct language groups in Timor-Leste. Some are quite small, some fit quite closely into the existing district structure, while some cross over many districts. The easy bit was transferring the data from the language groups to the ethnocultural groups; they are essentially the same thing. This was because I was able to define the ethnocultural categories based on language and ethnicity. The tricky bit was going through the 2010 national census and identify the numbers of people who speak each of the respective languages as their 'mother tongue', then work out, as a percentage, the presence of each of these groups at a national level. Once I worked the numbers out, I had all the facts I needed for both the language and ethnocultural groups.

The other bit that was challenging was ethnicity. Timor-Leste is a melting pot, from an 'ethnic' perspective, of predominately Austronesian (Poly-Malaysian) and Non-Austronesian (Papuan-Melanesian) influences. It felt rather arbitrary and a bit misleading to separate and disaggregate the current population into these two categories and attempt to give each a number for statistical purposes. The presence of Austronesian influences has been here for over 3000 years, non-Austronesian for even longer. There has been a lot of interaction and 'intermingling' between the two 'ethnicities' and differentiating them into distinct categories felt weird, disingenuous and a little neo-colonial. Despite these reservations I was resolved to complete the project. I addressed the matter of accounting for the relative size of each group, Austronesian and non-Austronesian, by first identifying which language group belonged to which ethnicity. Four of the language groups in Timor-Leste are recorded as Papuan: Bunaq, Fataluku, Makassai and Makalero. Again I went to the 2010 Census and added up the numbers, aggregating those whose mother tongue falls into the Papuan language group. The same was done for the remaining languages, which belong to the Poly-Malaysian language family. Admittedly this is very rough and a little dodgy but it was the only was I figured it could be done. Hopefully it gives a vaguely accurate picture of the 'ethnic' makeup of Tiimor-Leste.

Having completed this, I began entering details of all the politically influential people here. Details ranged from date of birth, education, language, ethnocultural identity, offices held in parliament and political allegiances. There are a lot of variables to take into account for the final analysis and I look forward to seeing it finalised. 

I'm going to take a break but I hope to write some more soon, weekend by the latest.

Please look at this site: - updated, link ok now

Together with a few people, I've put together this website for the elections in Timor-Leste in 2012. It's got a whole bunch of resources related to the elections. If you have any interest in them, please take a look. Cheers, Maun Evan.

http://sites.google.com/site/timorlesteelections2012/

I am still alive.

Hi everyone.

Wow, time has flown by. I am okay. So much happening here; I am exhausted.

A lot has happened: I have moved house to a place a lot closer to work (and everything else). This has made life so much easier. It's kinda like a fortress and there are people there  almost around the clock during the week. I feel very safe and comfortable. I will get some photos up soon.

I didn't go to the swearing in of the new president, but I did make it to the restoration day celebrations. I witnessed the flag raising  ceremony, the military parade, and the new president's speech.

This will do for the moment, hope to post something more substantial soon. I've got some photos somewhere as well. Enjoy!:

Some brief reflections on the Presidential Elections.

There’s a lot that could be said about the two rounds of campaigning, and the results themselves of course, for the Presidential election in Timor-Leste. To make this manageable, I will just write down a series of dot point style paragraphs; at least to begin with. I hope that this will help me get down some ideas I’ve been stewing on recently, as well as serve as a starting point for writing a short article or essay on the subject.

• My prediction on the winner was wrong. I picked Lu Olo with about 53% of the vote. I distributed votes and came to this conclusion based on some number crunching and several (now obviously dubious) rumours. I won’t get into details about these rumours but I believed that about 2/3 votes for JRH and 1/3 votes for Lasama, along with most of the votes coming from many of the other smaller losing candidates. While it looks like most of the support from the smaller candidates, including Manuel Tilman and Rogerio Lobato, did go to Lu Olo, an overwhelming majority of people who voted for Lasama and JRH supported TMR. I have come to several tentative conclusions from this:

• A big question in the 2^nd round was the level of support for FRETILIN; had the political quarantine imposed since 2007 been breached? It’s a mixed result for FRETILIN in my assessment. My initial feeling in the lead up to the 2^nd round of polling was yes. Many of the candidates from the 1^st round signed up to support Lu Olo: Tilman, Lobato, Angelita and Maria, as well as a senior guy in ASDT and Freitas. This was a bit illusory it terms of what it represented. While it did signal that other candidates from the 1^st round would support Lu Olo besides Tilman (like in 2007), the level of support these people carried was minimal. Even Lobato’s 4 or so per cent of support, while significant, would not be enough for Lu Olo.

• More bad news, it confirms for FRETILIN the limitation to their support in the country. While doing pretty well in the East, as they have always historically done, they continued to struggle in the Centre and West. They did poorly in the 1^st round and could not improve much in the 2^nd round. The strong swing to TMR in these two regions could be explained by perhaps two reasons. FRETILIN are generally disliked and not trusted by most voters, or the appeal of TMR as an independent candidate, backed by Xanana Gusmao and CNRT, and a war hero as well, made him a very popular candidate, or some combination of these two factors.

• Some good news. FRETILIN base level of support has not fallen since 2007. In fact, it may have improved somewhat. Lobato, while running as an independent candidate, is essentially part of the FRETILN family. Again, this is assuming that people who voted for Lobato are sympathetic to FRETILN and would vote for them otherwise, like in a parliamentary election. If so, this could tip FRETILIN’s support over 30%. The big challenge will be to find willing partners to form government. The overarching and uncompromising style that was a feature of their first term in government, 2002-2007, is remembered by all. It won them no friends, in fact, it lost them a lot of them. Will other parties be prepared to work with them? Has FRETILN learned they will need to play nice in the sand pit and share their toys? It’s possible they could form government, and they will get the most seats, but I find it hard to imagine them getting enough support to form a majority. At least for the moment anyway, it looks very unlikely.

• It is hard to gauge CNRT’s level of support. Go back to 2007, CNRT backs JRH in the first round and he gets 22%, in the parliamentary polls the same year, they receive around 25%. In 2012, backing TMR much to chagrin of JRH, TMR gets almost 26% of the vote. TMR probably had broader appeal and some of that vote would have come from voters not normally behind CNRT. Results in the Eastern districts indicate that TMR may have pulled in support, perhaps from veterans, who would normally have backed FRETILIN. What can we take from these results as far as CNRT is concerned?

• Good news is that the decisive results for their presidential candidate in the 2^nd round may point towards an easier route to forming a coalition in the upcoming new parliament. With Lasama and JRH releasing their supporters to vote according to their conscience, they got behind TMR. This may show the leadership of parties, particularly PD who may prove to be the kingmaker this year in the parliament, that voters are more comfortable working with CNRT. Getting behind CNRT’s presidential candidate indicates the temperament of voters in the West and Centre, which is not good news for FRETILN. This seeming preparedness of these voters is good news for CNRT, as they will definitely need to form a coalition to run the government again.

• Not so much bad news, but not good news either, is that the real base level of support for CNRT is hard to gauge. It doesn’t look like it has improved since 2007, and there is a chance it may have even dropped, depending on the non-CNRT level of support for TMR in the 1^st round. It currently looks like it is still the 2^nd biggest party in the country.

• Lasama looks like one the big winners. A good result in the 1^st round. Though it was about the same level of support as he received in 2007. Another big question is how this will translate in the parliamentary polls. In 2007, Lasama’s vote did not translate to the same level of support for PD, which got around 12%. Will this occur again? This may demonstrate the strength of and appeal of charismatic leaders when people are asked to support them as individual candidates for president. When it comes to political parties, it appears to be a different story. There are of course some variables at play here, presidential and parliamentary polls are different and the influence and role of political parties is different in the differing contexts of each campaign and poll. Individual leaders, my feeling is, play a more significant role than parties – except in the case of FRETILN.

• The role of JRH will be very important, but what he wants or wants to do is very unclear. It is a ‘known unknown’. Once his mandate as president is over on 19 May, things may get a bit clear. He will have some role in the elections; that is almost for sure. He has made some noises about his dissatisfaction with the current government and rumours abound that he will work with anyone to block XG getting back into power. JUST A RUMOUR I must add. What he does with ASDT, FRETILN and Lasama/PD will be something to observe carefully.

• Tensions are becoming, or seemingly becoming, evident in the current AMP government. Divisions in the coalition government over some legislation, particularly reforming the electoral law, and the lifting of immunity of two ministers so far, make the situation intriguing and a bit disconcerting. What is XG and CNRT up to? They are on the losing side of popular opinion on electoral law reform, and have effectively boycotted parliament to prevent a vote going ahead on it. They would only do this if they were going to lose it. PD and others in the coalition want to pass it. Why are they so adamantly against it? It must be in their political self-interest to act in this way. The current law makes people vote in the home village, which makes life difficult and expensive if people want to vote, particularly if you are in Dili and have to travel to the East to vote. One story I have heard is that CNRT figure this hurts FRETILN, with many students and works from their support base in the East disinclined to go home to vote. If there is a good reason not to change it, for logistical reasons etc. then they should turn up to parliament and make their case. Refusing to attend parliament so that a quorum isn’t achieved is a cowardly and immature approach. It sets a very bad precedent.

• Another rumour that won’t go away is that XG wants so split PD. This makes a lot of sense for CNRT. PD will play a crucial role in the elections, and could prove a large obstacle to work around or negotiate with. If XG can avoid doing this, why not? It is clear from the 2^nd round of presidential polling that most supporters in PD would be prepared to get behind CNRT, and not FRETILIN, if PD was not an option. Though the leadership of PD would be split between FRETILN and CNRT, CNRT would benefit greatly from PD’s support base shifting towards them. This may sound like a conspiracy theory, but with XG placing pressure on PD by throwing on of their ministers to the lions, allowing charges to be laid against the minister, I could see this occurring. Again, this is just ANOTHER RUMOUR, and Timor-Leste thrives on them.

Trying to take a break...

I'm attempting to have a holiday.

Really, a week isn't enough. And there is so much coming up it's hard not to think about it - and start to plan for it too.

There's a lot I want to read, and plenty of writing I want to do. I'm reading the new political biography of Xanana Gusmao by Sara Niner, and 'The Nigger of the Narcissus and Other Stories', by Joseph Conrad.

Niner's book is quite insightful. It's a good introduction to Timor-Leste; it covers a lot of the history of the country through telling the story of the current Prime Minister. The fraught relationship between FRETIIN and XG is revealed very early on in the tale. It was never a comfortable relationship and it explains a lot about what is going on now, and what has happened since restoration in 2002.

Reading some fiction is nice now and then. The Secret Agent was great and I'm giving this collection of stories by Conrad a go. It can get a bit dense; the level of detail is sometimes excruciating when he describes things and tells his story, but I still enjoy it.

The conference I mentioned in my last post is a no go. Bit of a communication break down regarding details so I won't be doing that. Kinda relieved actually, was probably too much for me to prepare for considering the amount of work I expect to do in the next three months. Don't know if a paper and presentation is the best idea after I just return from the field - too much pressure perhaps.

Besides working on my own research project - a work in progress - I will be doing some work with the Asia Foundation on their SMS project. They are introducing the use of SMS technology in electoral campaigning to political parties before the parliamentary polls. I'll help with some of the research and writing up of it. It may prove a source of ideas and networks for my own work too. And I'll also be doing a project with the Global Leadership Project. It's got funding from the World Bank and they are collecting data on the people involved in the political and judicial life of countries around the globe. I'll be working on Timor-Leste (obviously). Gonna keep me busy; and time will absolutely fly by. Already thinking about my return. Yikes.

I will write some reflections on the presidential polls eventually, maybe on Monday.

Catch you later.

Burning Out…

I certainly feel that I have run out of gas. I was already at this stage before sickness hit me and my bike was stolen this week. There two things finished me off.

I am in a reflective mood, a natural enough feeling I suppose having reached the halfway stage of my time here. I am fairly satisfied with what I have done so far. I didn’t have any specific goals for the first three months; except for finding my feet, getting a feel for the place, and get along to as many rallies as I could. These were fairly general objectives and I think I have achieved them quite successfully.

It’s one thing to read about the politics of a country in journals and books from afar, quite another thing to actually live there for a substantive period of time and learn from that experience. There are so many layers to a country, and Timor-Leste is no exception. What I learned from reading about it in my first year is a world away from what I have learned about it having lived here for just three months.

Even still, after all the conversations, all the newspapers, and all the rallies etc. I feel that I have only begun to scratch the surface of only a small number of aspects of the story here. My knowledge and understanding has improved dramatically; but what I know is still so shallow. Perhaps the greatest thing I have learned here is how little I know. And that is an important point to reach. Prepared with complete modesty to re-enter the field after my week long break in early May, I believe I can crawl a little further along my education about this fascinating country.

On my supervisor’s suggestion, I will take 2-3 days off proper and take a proper break. Winding down and forgetting about it will be difficult. I am an obsessive compulsive with my research, I got to sleep thinking about it, I wake up thinking about it; it follows me everywhere. Being sick was actually a blessing as I couldn’t really think about anything even if wanted to. Stepping away from my research will help give me some distance and hopefully may shed some new light on it. I’ve got a few ideas that I want to develop, turn into short articles; see if they have legs.

I’ve been invited to propose a paper as part of a presentation for a conference in late August. The conference is on Histories of Violence. I would need to put together a half page paper proposal by the end of Monday, not much time, but I have an idea that I might be able to develop for such a purpose. It would be pretty rushed, a fairly scrappy proposal, but it may be worth a shot. Half a page isn’t too bad and I’ve got a topic. Be good practice anyway.

My topic would focus on the deployment of narratives of violence and suffering in the electoral campaigns in Timor-Leste. The political usage of the tragic outcomes of violence has been a common theme here and I think I have enough to turn it into something substantial. I’ll have to cram it over the next two days, but I’ll give it a go. Here’s the link to the conference site:

http://www.newcastle.edu.au/institute/humanities-research/historyofviolence/ViolenceStudiesConference2012.html

The language issue here has been quite frustrating. I mean, my Tetun has not really progressed during my time here. I don’t seem to have many opportunities to use it. I need to work harder with it but I find it a challenge. I don’t have a lot of interaction with local people on a regular basis. I try and use Tetun as much as possible but it is limited and I find myself falling back into using Indonesian. English is reasonably common here with the people I am meeting from political parties and NGOs, and I get much more out of these conversations by using English. I read the local papers every day and I feel my reading has improved, so it’s not all bad. It’s the funniest thing. The guys who sell me the paper think it’s hilarious; a malae coming along and buying all the papers every morning. They try and sell me as many as they can, even if they are a day old. Ideally I would do some courses to improve it, and they do exist. I might need to check it out, though I am increasingly concerned about expenses with the loss of my bike etc. And finding time will be hard. When I get back in the middle of May, time will absolutely disappear. Gonna be so busy with campaigning for the parliamentary elections gearing up.

I think I’m done here… I’ll post again sometime during my break in Bali. Until then, stay safe.

Normal Service has Resumed

Apologies, I meant to update this earlier (Tuesday).

I fully intended to but I had what was undoubtedly the worst day of my time here.

I had stomach issues (I'll spare you the details) in the morning and was feeling rubbish all through the day. I ended up going home with a fever as well. I was really concerned I had contracted Dengue Fever; I felt sore all over, I had a high temperature, and a bad headache. I stayed at home for the next two days and I seem to be over the worst of it. May have just been a virus kinda thing.

Ensuring that Tuesday was the worst day of my time here was the theft of my motorbike. I left it at RnR Cafe, where I was meeting someone for lunch. Sometime between 12 and 2 someone nicked off with it. I reported it to the police (waste of time) and retreated back to the office. Likely scenario is that it was taken by a local gang. They extort local businesses for protection money. A well informed person suspects that RnR hasn't been paying its dues, this has happened before at this place. The local racket takes its customers' vehicles as a way of encouraging businesses to pay the protection money. (Customers won't come back if their stuff gets nicked, the business loses business etc etc...)

I won't get it back. It's probably on its way to West Timor, or already there. Going to buy a 2nd hand bike for the last three bikes. And I will be far more careful about my parking. Oh yeah, insurance doesn't cover it so I"m out a nice chunk of change.

I'm looking forward to my break. Heading to Bali for a week on the 9th of May. Need to get out and stop (somehow). I think I'll post on the weekend, want to catch up on election results and other issues. Might just put up some photos this evening.

Hope you had a better week than me!