VZCZCXRO0109
PP RUEHCHI RUEHNH RUEHPB
DE RUEHDT #0101/01 0660542
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 070542Z MAR 06
FM AMEMBASSY DILI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2286
INFO RUCNARF/ASEAN REGIONAL FORUM COLLECTIVE
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 0307
RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA PRIORITY 0363
RUEHWL/AMEMBASSY WELLINGTON PRIORITY 0241
RUEHLI/AMEMBASSY LISBON PRIORITY 0286
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 0160
RUEHDT/AMEMBASSY DILI 1605

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 DILI 000101 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EAP/MTS 
USUN FOR RICHARD MCCURRY 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV KDEM TT
SUBJECT: DISTURBING DEVELOPMENTS IN PREPARATIONS FOR ELECTIONS; UNDP 
PROPOSAL MAY AGGRAVATE THE PROBLEM 
 
REF: A) 05 DILI 558, B) DILI 21 
 
DILI 00000101  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary: In recent discussions with representatives of 
international election assistance NGOs and via requests for 
assistance relayed to the UN, senior Government of East Timor 
(GOET) officials have revealed an outline of their plans for the 
2007 legislative and presidential elections.  Embassy Dili is 
concerned that the Government's approach to the planning and 
structure of these elections will involve little public 
consultation, will give the ruling party excessive control over 
electoral institutions, and will not establish strong 
independent monitoring and accountability mechanisms.  While 
international election assistance NGOs are planning programs to 
fill in some of the gaps, a robust UN election assistance 
program will be needed both to counteract some of the 
Government's undemocratic inclinations and to fill in the gaps 
that are too big for the NGOs to fill.  Unfortunately, the UN 
Development Program (UNDP) is in the process of designing a 
program that would provide technical assistance to the 
Government's specifications while doing little or nothing to 
level the playing field.  The UNDP program would also rely 
almost entirely on bilateral funding, thus virtually 
guaranteeing its inadequacy.  In order to ensure free and fair 
elections, East Timor needs a UN Election Assistance Division 
program that should include: a) carefully selected international 
advisors working on all aspects of election preparation and 
implementation; b) substantial support for the independent 
election commission that is mandated by East Timor's 
Constitution; c) training and logistical support for political 
parties; and d) strong monitoring presence during the campaign 
as well as on election day.  End Summary. 
 
¶2. (U) Representatives of several international and/or 
multilateral organizations, including UNOTIL (UN Office for East 
Timor), the UN Department of Political Affairs' Electoral 
Assistance Division (EAD), UNDP, and the International 
Federation of Election Systems (IFES), have met recently with 
senior GOET officials to assess East Timor's preparedness and 
Government planning for the 2007 elections.  Ref B discusses the 
visit and report of EAD's Needs Assessment Mission.   Reports 
received from representatives of other organizations that have 
met with GOET officials confirm the impression of the EAD 
mission that GOET is planning a national election that may 
replicate some of the problems of Timor's recent local 
elections, discussed in Ref A. 
 
¶3. (SBU) IFES representatives met recently with Minister of 
State Administration Ana Pessoa, the primary official overseeing 
the development of a new election law and the organization of 
the 2007 elections.  Pessoa, who effectively functions as Deputy 
Prime Minister, is the most important member of Prime Minister 
Mari Alkatiri's small inner circle of advisors who spent their 
exile in Mozambique.  In her meeting with IFES representatives 
she outlined some key intentions regarding the election law and 
the kinds of assistance GOET wants from the international 
community.  The Government intends to write a law that retains 
the same problematic structure used during the local elections 
(see ref A).  This will include the Technical Secretariat for 
Election Administration (STAE), responsible for all election 
logistics and reporting directly to Pessoa's ministry, and an 
independent monitoring body.  Although East Timor's Constitution 
requires an independent body to supervise or oversee 
("supervisar") the elections, the National Election Commission 
that oversaw the local elections had little real power and even 
fewer resources.  See Ref B.  In addition, Pessoa indicated that 
the election law will provide for proportional party 
representation in the Parliament, but will favor larger parties 
by establishing a minimum threshold for party representation. 
Pessoa also addressed the issue of election scheduling.  While 
dates are yet to be set, she made clear that the Government will 
not depart from its plan to hold parliamentary and presidential 
elections on two separate dates, with the parliamentary election 
most likely first. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Regarding international election assistance, Minister 
Pessoa has made requests to UNOTIL for several advisors 
(including technical assistance to STAE and legal drafting 
assistance for the election law) and has conveyed some 
receptiveness to the assistance available via international 
NGOs.  However, both IFES and UNOTIL sources have noted that she 
clearly wants to impose strict limits and controls on the form 
and scale of international involvement.  According to these 
sources, Minister Pessoa wants international technical 
assistance tailored in such a way as to minimize the likelihood 
 
DILI 00000101  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
that the assistance will include advice the Government does not 
want to hear. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Among other indications of this determination, Minister 
Pessoa has insisted that UNOTIL appoint a particular legal 
advisor, a relatively undistinguished Portuguese lawyer who 
assisted GOET last year in drafting the problematic local 
election law.  She has rejected an offer by UNOTIL to provide an 
election law expert from Spain who is fluent in Portuguese and 
far more highly regarded than the advisor whose appointment 
Minister Pessoa prefers. 
 
¶6. (U) At present the Government indicates that it has not begun 
to draft an election law.  Nor has there been consultation with 
anyone outside the Government itself about what the election law 
ought to provide.  Meanwhile, the ruling Fretilin party has 
already begun its preparations for the 2007 elections: several 
regional party congresses have already been held to elect 
delegates to the national party Congress scheduled for late May. 
 The national Congress will almost certainly re-elect its two 
top leaders, Prime Minister Alkatiri and National Parliament 
President Francisco Lu'Olo Guterres, to lead the party in the 
upcoming elections.  Opposition parties have not yet gotten off 
the mark, in part because they are less organized and far less 
well-financed than Fretilin, and in part because in the absence 
of an election law they do not yet know the context in which to 
structure their campaigns.  Moreover, organizations that intend 
to work on voter education, advocacy, and/or election monitoring 
lack the legal context in which to move forward with their 
planning. 
 
¶7. (SBU) On Friday, March 3, Emboffs attended a meeting called 
by UNOTIL to unveil what was billed as a comprehensive UN 
electoral assistance plan.  Although the meeting was chaired by 
SRSG Sukehiro Hasegawa, who is the head of UNOTIL as well as of 
UNDP in East Timor, the presentation of the proposed electoral 
assistance program was given entirely by UNDP officers and 
appears to be entirely a UNDP program.  In response to questions 
at the meeting and in a later private conversation, Dr. Hasegawa 
indicated that EAD would be asked to "bless" the UNDP program 
and perhaps to advise it. 
 
¶8. (SBU) The proposed UNDP program apparently resulted from a 
two-person UNDP Needs Assessment Mission, which visited Dili 
after the EAD mission and without any of the publicity or broad 
consultation that characterized the latter mission.   Indeed, 
the UNDP mission apparently confined itself largely to meetings 
with Minister Pessoa, and UNOTIL sources report that UNDP's 
initial proposal for an electoral assistance program in Timor 
was essentially a laundry list of the things Minister Pessoa had 
indicated she wanted.  This consisted primarily of nine 
international advisors to STAE, including two legal advisors who 
would assist in drafting the electoral law and others who would 
provide technical advice, public information services, and so 
forth. 
 
¶9. (SBU) According to UNOTIL sources, Dr. Hasegawa insisted that 
the UNDP program include some assistance to the independent 
electoral commission.  The proposal was modified accordingly, 
although "Phase I" of the program included only one 
international advisor to the commission.  In "Phase II" --- to 
be implemented after the election law is adopted, during the 
last few months before the election itself --- most of the UNDP 
advisors would still advise STAE, but six would advise the 
independent commission.  The proposal presented at Friday's 
meeting would also provide assistance to allow the commission to 
have a few Timorese staff members in each of the country's 
thirteen districts. 
 
¶10. (U) In addition to the diplomatic corps, invitees to the 
March 3 meeting included East Timor's political parties, NGOs, 
and journalists as well as STAE director Tomas Cabral and 
members of the National Election Commission.  Representatives of 
opposition parties, journalists, and Commission members 
complained that the proposed assistance to the Commission was 
grossly inadequate.  They argued that in order to fulfill its 
oversight mandate, the Commission would have to be present not 
just in the thirteen districts, but in the sixty-five 
sub-districts and in each of the polling places around the 
country, during the campaign and also on election day.  STAE 
chief Cabral, on the other hand, said the Commission would need 
no independent help because the Government would give it all the 
resources it might need to perform its constitutionally mandated 
 
DILI 00000101  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
functions.  Diplomats present at the meeting generally confined 
themselves to asking questions.  Some of these questions focused 
on issues similar to those raised by the NGOs and opposition 
party members.  Others asked why they were being presented not 
with an EAD proposal but rather with what appeared to be almost 
exclusively a UNDP program. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Emboffs have learned that later on Friday, after the 
meeting with the diplomatic corps and other observers, UNDP met 
with Minister Pessoa to present the details of the draft 
program.  According to sources in the meeting, Pessoa indicated 
that the GOET was happy with the parts of the proposal that 
would assist STAE, but she insisted that almost all the proposed 
assistance to the independent election commission be cut from 
the proposal.  In particular, she indicated that the commission 
would need no presence in the districts, much less in all the 
sub-districts or at all polling places.  Rather, she indicated 
that, "STAE can take care of that." 
 
¶12. (U) UNDP also made an appeal at Friday's meeting for 
bilateral donations to fund it proposed program.  The budget was 
about $8 million, and UNDP representatives indicated that UNDP 
would be able to contribute little or nothing from its central 
budget, which provides only $1 million per year for East Timor. 
Diplomatic representatives of Australia, Portugal, and Brazil 
indicated that they might contribute to the program.  The 
Ambassadors of the United States and Japan indicated that their 
governments were committed to providing some assistance for the 
elections, but that they would have to study the proposal 
further before deciding how much if any of their electoral 
assistance would be channeled through UNDP.  (Comment:  USAID 
has tentative plans to spend between $2 million and $3 million 
on a wide range of election-related activities through IFES, 
NDI, IRI, and perhaps organizations that work to develop the 
capacity of news media.  Embassy Dili's preliminary assessment 
is that USAID's current plans, although no substitute for a 
robust UN electoral assistance program, are far more likely to 
enhance the prospects for a free and fair election than the UNDP 
program will be, and that it would be counterproductive to 
divert funds from these activities to UNDP.  End Comment.) 
 
¶13. (SBU) UNOTIL sources indicate that UNDP is revising the 
program in an attempt to meet Minister Pessoa's concerns.  It is 
possible, however, that the inability of UNDP to negotiate a 
program that even pretends to provide adequate resources to the 
independent commission will strengthen the hand of EAD in 
internal UN negotiations in New York.  This could result in the 
revival of the idea discussed in Ref B for an EAD-designed 
program designed to promote international best practices. 
 
¶14. (SBU) Meanwhile, however, Emboffs have learned that UNDP 
and/or UNOTIL have agreed to pay for a "consultancy" by the 
Portuguese legal advisor requested by Minister Pessoa, who will 
visit later in March along with a colleague, also Portuguese, to 
assist her in drafting the law.  It appears that the resulting 
draft will largely replicate the flawed local election law --- a 
powerful STAE reporting to Minister Pessoa, a weak oversight 
commission, and such other features as hundreds of "civic 
education brigades" paid with government funds and controlled by 
Pessoa's ministry rather than by the independent commission. 
See Ref B.  The plan appears to be that this draft will be 
endorsed by the Council of Ministers and sent to the 
Fretilin-dominated Parliament for speedy enactment with little 
or no public consultation, much less any attempt to forge a 
broad national consensus. 
 
¶15. (SBU) Comment:  These recent developments strengthen 
Embassy's conviction, expressed in Ref B, that in order to 
ensure free and fair elections East Timor needs a UN Election 
Assistance Division program that should include: a) carefully 
selected international advisors working on all aspects of 
election preparation and implementation; b) substantial support 
for the independent election commission that is mandated by East 
Timor's Constitution, including support for the commission to 
have a presence in the sub-districts and at the polls; c) 
training and logistical support for political parties; and d) 
strong monitoring presence during the campaign as well as on 
election day.  End Comment. 
REES