When it involves elections, Timor-Leste and its system of voting has given its residents a purpose to really feel enthusiastic about democracy, writes GJ Burchall.
THE FIRST OF MANY issues that strike you at polling locations in Timor-Leste is the full lack of assaults on voters by how-to-vote card boosters – the type that swarm throughout Australian voters like demented, malaria-lugging mosquitos.
Party flags, banners and shills should hold at a respectful 25-metre distance. Ditto the automated weapons.
It was completely different within the weeks main as much as election day. Rival flags have been flown outdoors homes and retailers, adorned vehicles, mikrolets and motorbikes (some pillion riders even wore massive flags as capes, which made them appear to be celebration superheroes as they shot previous).
Parties have been assigned rally days on a clogged marketing campaign calendar and allotted streets over which they might string their pennons. All day and into the early night, visitors on fundamental thoroughfares was blocked by trundling vehicles, whose open trays carried mobs of chanting, flag-flapping youths.
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Timor-Leste is offering a common politics tutorial – they’ve received the appropriate to barter a authorized maritime boundary within the South China Sea.
In Australia, not solely is truck-bed travelling banned, however you’d battle to seek out this stage of election enthusiasm.
This is, little question, as a result of its obligatory, chore-like, non-democratic, fine-threat essence. Timor-Leste, in distinction, unable to vote for 500 years, has warmly embraced the exercise. Voting will not be obligatory, but they will boast common turnouts of over 80 per cent from 860,000 registered voters, even when some should journey nice distances to take action.
“Your mission is to observe the election,” iterated the agent on the official briefing:
We superb 43 have been a delegation of volunteers convened by the Australian East Timor Association and Victoria University, simply one in all a number of worldwide gangs who descended upon Timor-Leste to testify if the poll was held freely and pretty. Or not.
Said mission started within the pre-dawn darkish outdoors the Dili resort through which lots of the Australian observers have been lodged. It received off to an instantly rocky begin. (The complete day would show to be rocky however that was as a result of street situations.) Our driver proved to be a no-show. The day earlier than had been Restoration of Independence Day, so we suspected he was fortunately embroiled in an all-night celebration, or else struggling its after-effects.
There we have been, in our daggy emblazoned polo shirts and large lanyard IDs, in a determined attraction for a brand new charioteer. We wanted to get to a polling place to evince the opening of the poll, which concerned an election officer displaying the empty field to the assembled to attest to its vacancy, then seal it shut with a numbered tag.
Finally, a driver with an off-duty mikrolet was engaged and we raced off to our first location.
This Election Day, being a Sunday, a pre-mass crowd awaited the 7 AM ballot opening. Voters queued, confirmed their ID playing cards, picked up a poll paper and disappeared right into a cardboard cubicle.
Vote lodged, they dip their forefinger into an inkpot as additional proof (and insurance coverage) that they’ve had their one vote. The poll paper was gargantuan for such a small constituency. It was about A3 measurement and displayed the names and colored logos of the 17 events up for consideration. Voters didn’t have to quantity every field. Or even one field. Instead of a pencil, every sales space is supplied with a six-inch nail on a string. Simply punch a gap within the field you favour. This might be necessary on the day’s finish.
Meanwhile, over on the fundamental hospital, there was appreciable consternation. There had been a belated try by the Government to introduce parallel (absentee) voting however it didn’t be ratified earlier than the deadline. This meant sufferers, their guests and even some rostered employees couldn’t vote in the event that they weren’t registered in Dili district.
In distinction and depending on the interval of incarceration handed to them, the visitors of the central jail knew rattling properly the place they’d be on 21 May.
Voting there was, as elsewhere, orderly and peaceable and likely a welcome break in routine.
The group bounced across the rutted roads of outer Dili to examine the motion at these and different areas. Most of the polling stations have been in colleges and group halls, as in Australia, however with added sticky humidity.
A couple of occasions we would have liked to desert the mikrolet to trek up excuses for goat tracks to achieve an remoted station.
Change in voting system may save us all
A legislative change made in 2016 could assist take away energy from political candidates threatening to disrupt democracy.
By lunch, the queues have been no extra and an expectant lull settled. Another distinction to Australia was that there have been no fundraiser snags-in-bread on provide, so we betook ourselves to an outside beachside restaurant for some restorative meals and beer.
We took our time (properly, the service did) because it was clear that almost all of Timorese democracy-worshippers had voted pre- or post-mass.
And we would have liked to watch the three PM shut of polls.
Back we trundled to one in all our earlier areas in Liquica (about 35 kilometres west of Dili).
Liquica is a nice, shady city with a haunted previous. During WW2, the Japanese constructed a focus camp into which have been herded Portuguese nationals. In 1999, the pro-Indonesian militia massacred dozens of Timorese – principally youngsters and the aged – who had sought sanctuary within the native church.
But we have been on the market to test the seal numbers on the packing containers, watch them be opened and the votes tipped out. We weren’t alone. Aside from the electoral employees, shrew-eyed celebration scrutineers (fiskais) held a watching transient. These spotters weren’t alleged to show celebration affiliation, however their uniform alternative of T-shirt colors made loyalties fairly clear.
They have been there – as have been we – whereas electoral employees, who sat in a circle on the ground, sifted by means of ballots from a pile within the center. They unfolded every paper and laid it flat. This took fairly a while, because the ballots had wanted to be folded small to slot in the field slot.
Finally, the ballot station supervisor began to work by means of the pile, holding every sheet up so all might see the nail gap. Scrutineers scrutinised. Villagers outdoors the room peered over a five-foot wall to look at. The supervisor referred to as every paper and it was added to a butcher paper tally sheet caught on the wall behind him. They might be counted once more at electoral HQ in Dili.
We dutifully noticed this for a few hours, then determined to go again to Dili to beat the early sundown.
We’ll meet once more the following day to be debriefed with the opposite groups, examine impressions, collaborate on our report and attend a thanks (obrigadu) perform on the Australian embassy.
“Nobody forces them to vote or punishes them if they don’t,” remarked one in all our group. “They actually want to vote.”
True. The Timorese usually are not jaded or cynical about so-called democracy. Yet.
GJ Burchall is a journalist, scriptwriter and educator who was born and bred in Melbourne.