Associated Press report that the talks setup today to agree on a government of national unity have failed.  From where I sit, they were bound to.  The opposing groups do not like each other.  JRH (Jose Ramos-Horta) has given it until Wednesday to come up with something but says a decision will be made by the end of the month no matter what.

As Charlie Brown would say, “Good grief”.  Personally, I feel another election coming on because any other option seems bound to severely cheese off one of the opposing political groupings.

Tonight, there were security warnings but very little action … so far.  So why would there suddenly be a big increase in security incidents ?  Wouldn’t be related to the attempts to form an agreement over a new government ?  Nothing like this level of activity for 3 or 4 months.

These days, the international security forces are pretty well drilled in how to handle the gang-related violence and more importantly, how to contain it so that life goes on for the vast majority.  Setup a roadblock with an armoured personnel carrier and a couple of UN police vehicles with lots of flashing lights and send a group of heavily armed, night-vision goggles wearing troops to assert a visible presence and “Bobs your uncle”, she’s contained and not worth writing about.

I am a little perplexed why the OZ ABC have gone extremely quiet in their reporting after being very active in past events.  Don’t you just love politics ?  There’s plenty of fodder here for the likes of the OZ political cartoonists.

Get to it lads … just have a look at the way the OZ cartoon boys tear strips off Little Johnny and TinTin.

What a strange week or so.  Tons of international election observer teams praising the election process (with a few minor gripes), then leaving town.  But we still don’t have a result.

And the UN pledging to support the new government – whatever it is.

And a parliamentary minority claiming victory against a majority coalition of opposing parties who (publically) say they will not vote with the aforementioned minority.

And for the last 2 nights, an increase in night-time security incidents involving rock throwing and tyre burning.  The boys are restless.

Constitutional lawyers … come on down.  Maybe there is a clause about settling election results by an arm wrestle.

Dear Jeb,

A few weeks back, I praised the progress in the Timorese electoral process and cast excrement on your part in the Florida fiasco.  I would like to apologise unreservedly.

Clearly, I should have retained some excrement and I obviously threw way too early.

I am not sure if you sent out the rednecks at midnight to do some re-education through the knuckle, but you should take note of the possibilities for next time.  As the boss’s brother, you play a very important part in influencing public opinion.  Yeah, I know its hard when he’s the ugly one.

yours feyfully

It looks like that a coalition of CNRT, ASDT/PSD and PD may have been successfully formed.  This coalition has more than 50% of the seats in parliament and therefore can pass legislation.

Fretilin have claimed that as the party with the most votes, they are entitled to receive the first invitation from the president to form a government.  They have said they have 60 days (or was it 90 ?) to act on this.  It is unclear if a signed agreement from the coalition takes precedence over the 60 days.

Jose Teixeira from Fretilin (via Radio OZ) has said that the constitution permits Fretilin to form a minority government.  He makes a clear distinction between a pre-election coalition and post-election coalition, basically asserting that a post-election coalition has no other additional rights apart from the ability to vote on a majority basis.  I am not sure just how a minority government can get any legislation passed.  I understand that if the budget is rejected twice, then the president has grounds to dissolve parliament and call for fresh elections.

So on the one hand, it is possible that once the final elections results have been released within the next week, that a coalition could be invited to form a government.  On the other hand, it could take 2 months before Fretilin finally concede that they can not form a majority government.  They could go for the minority government option which may eventually lead to a fresh election.

Take your pick or anything in between.

The parliamentary vote counting finished just after lunch today. So that’s 4.3 x 15 hour counting days or 65 hours of counting. The result seemed known about Tuesday once trends had been set.

The key outcomes are :

• Fretilin had the most votes with 29.0%, followed by CNRT with 24.1%
• Both ASDT/PSD and PD seemed to lose votes when compared to the presidential elections
• However, about 9% of the vote went to minor parties who failed to meet the 3% threshold and hence those votes basically are totally wasted
• It is assumed that the above 9% of votes has all come from the non-Fretilin parties while Fretilin has pretty much held their supporter base

The seat allocation is expected to be :

Presumably a coalition needs to be formed with a minimum of 33 seats of the total 65 seats. It would be a huge surprise for a lot of people if Fretilin could obtain such a coalition arrangement. Most people assume a CNRT-ASDT/PSD-PD coalition.