The parliamentary election is following the peaceful Presidential elections in March and April, providing confidence that the legislative elections will also be conducted in a peaceful manner. The legislative elections is prepared in the atmosphere of the 10th anniversary of the restoration of Timor-Leste’s independence, during which the country’s impressive political achievements over the last decade were honored.
The Parliamentary Electoral Law provides for the selection of a 65 seat Parliament, elected in one national constituency consisting of 626 503 registered voters. The law foresees a 3 percent threshold for parties to take up seats in parliament and party lists are to run with one woman in every third position. The election will be the sixth since the holding of the UN supervised referendum on the country’s independence from Indonesia in August 1999. The UN Electoral Support Team (UNEST) is an integrated initiative from the UNDP Support to the Timorese Electoral cycle project and provides advice and support to the two electoral management bodies; The independent National Election Commission (CNE) and the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration (STAE), in the areas of electoral planning, legal, logistics, information technology and data base, civic and voter education, public information management, finance administration and graphic design. Norway supports the UNDP Timorese Electoral Cycle Project.
Member of the European Parliament and Chief Observer of the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM), Ms Fiona Hall, has already arrived in Timor-Leste to introduce the EU EOM to stakeholders in Dili and throughout the country. On the election day itself the EU Election Observation Mission will be accompanied by observers from the European Parliament.