Friday, July 06, 2007



Coalition time in Timor-Leste

East Timor went to the polls on Saturday to elect a new 65-member Parliament. Now, after five days of counting, the final results [PDF] are out: FRETILIN won 29%, Xanana Gusmao's National Congress of East Timor's Reconstruction (CNRT) 24.1%, the Association of Timorese Democrats-Social Democrat Party (ASDT-PSD) coalition 15.8%, the Democratic Party (PD) 11.3%, with a trio of smaller parties taking another 10% of the vote. Translating these into seats using the d’Hondt method gives the following:

FRETILIN: 21
CNRT: 18
ASDT-PSD: 11
PD: 8
PUN: 3
UNDERTIM: 2
AD KOTA-PDT: 2

Fretilin is putting on a brave face and trying to claim victory based on its plurality, but the likely outcome is a CNRT / ASDT-PSD / PD coalition, with Gusmao as Prime Minister.