Veteran resistance party Fretilin won East Timor's first free elections, UN officials announced yesterday, but failed to score the two-thirds majority which would have let it dictate the territory's first constitution.
Fretilin - the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor - won 57.3 per cent of the overall vote, giving it 55 of the 88 seats in the constituent assembly, the UN's chief electoral officer, Mr Carlos Valenzuela, said.
Fretilin needed a 60-seat majority in order to approve all the assembly's decisions, including drafting the constitution.
Mr Valenzuela was announcing the final provisional results from the August 30th poll. The certified results will be announced on September 10th. "This has been the most peaceful election I've ever been involved in, and the most consolidated and democratic election ever held under the auspices of the UN," he said.
The poll was "extremely touching and important" because it "helped heal the wounds of the tragic events after the 1999 popular consultation", he added.
After 80 per cent of East Timorese voted in the 1999 ballot to split from Jakarta, local militias backed by the Indonesian military killed hundreds of people, destroyed 80 per cent of the infrastructure and burnt whole towns to the ground.
On August 30th, 91.3 per cent of registered voters thronged the polling booths, this time to vote for a body which will draw up East Timor's founding constitution and become the national parliament by early December.
In second place is the Democratic Party (PD), founded by the student movement, with seven seats. The Social Democratic Party (PSD) of Mr Mario Carrascalao, who governed the territory under Indonesian rule but went on to support independence, and the Timorese Social Democratic Association (ASDT) won six seats each.
The Timorese Democratic Union (UDT), the Christian Democratic Party (PDC), Kota, the Timorese Nationalist Party (PNT) and the People's Party of Timor (PPT) won two seats each.
The Timor Socialist Party (PST), the Liberal Party (PL) and the Christian Democratic Party of Timor (UDC-PDC) were each allocated one seat. One seat went to an independent candidate.
The head of the UN's transitional administration in East Timor, Mr Sergio Vieira de Mello, congratulated Fretilin and other parties who won seats.
Mr De Mello told a press conference he was "very proud with how these elections were conducted in such an orderly and peaceful manner that other democratic countries can feel jealous". The UN has since October, 1999, been guiding the territory, a Portuguese colony for more than 400 years before falling under Indonesian rule for 24 years, to independence.