Reflesaun...

Greetings dear readers...

I have been following the latest political developments with dismay. The victory by AMP, another five years with Xanana and his cronies, now with the support of Taur Matan Ruak, spells disaster for Timor Leste.

Xanana led a very corrupt government over the past 10 years. He has successfully created a society where corruption and mismanagement is acceptable; where the public servants and officials can use the state to enrich themselves.

The Timor Leste elite, veterans, family members of the politicians, and their cronies, have now captured the state. The Timor Leste intelligentsia, many of whom supported Taur Matan Ruak and now Xanana and his CNRT, have chosen to reinforce this system.

This system will drive the country further down the path towards failure; failure for the people but not for the elite. In the last 10 years, Xanana has managed to waste $14 billion of Timor Leste's financial resources, in addition to hundreds of millions of dollars of loans from ADB, World Bank and Chinese banks.

Still Timor Leste is a country without proper functioning health system on par with the supposed investments over the past 10 years. The education system still fails to produce capable Timorese people able to perform many tasks key to developing the country. The country still lacks adequate water and sanitation; most homes still don't have piped water, children and women still walk large distance to fetch water, still yet many defecate openly. Although I admit that it would be unfair to say that nothing at all was produced over the last 10 years, but one should expect there to be more if you take the $14 billion they spent over the last 10 years.

But who became millionaire in the process? Among the nouveau riche includes Xanana's own daughter and nephews. They benefited handsomely from Xanana's generosity, mostly channeled through government contracts handed out by the government. Xanana's daughter, Zenilda Gusmao was finally investigated over her business dealings, among the charges include tax avoidance. But now that her father is back in the hot seat, she may see these charges dropped and will revert back to her old corrupt dealings. Xanana's family is known as the Keluarga Cendana, or the Cendana Family, a name given to Suharto's family.

Alas, the people have chosen. Xanana and Taur Matan Ruak ran a very successful campaign against FRETILIN and PD. They employed some of the most devious tactics against FRETILIN; a lot of scare mongering; racial and religious slurs; and plenty of falsehoods. Unfortunately, FRETILIN, and PD, was not prepared for such assault. Perhaps no one would have thought at the time that Xanana would sink to the level of a shrewd African politician. While FRETILIN tried to play nice, Xanana was eroding its support through demagoguery. It was a shocking experience to watch FRETILIN being devoured by a demagogue.

In a properly functioning democracy, where the public is well informed, Xanana would have been wiped out at the election. But in Timor Leste personality based politics is strong; patron-client relationship between politicians and the elite remain strong and perhaps proved decisive - it's true; my well off relatives who benefited from the past 10 years see FRETILIN as its enemy who would tighten spending and rid the system of hand outs. Where the society sees corruption as acceptable way of managing the state, Xanana would be a first choice.

So what will happen over the next 5 years? It's scary. If Xanana's appetite for mega projects continues, we will see whatever is left of the country's sovereign wealth fund, the Petroleum Fund, quickly exhausted. The rich and those well connected will get richer and reap most of the benefits. The public at large will remain with bad roads, bad health and education system, lower standards of living, etc. Poverty numbers will perhaps improve in the short run, but after the Petroleum Fund is exhausted, without much alternative to derive its income, the country will quickly descend into chaos.

Even if the much promised Greater Sunrise project is developed, the returns from this development is only enough to hold the country for another 5 to 10 years. But with the ongoing stalemate as to where a processing centre should be based, we may end up not developing this project at all, unless if we can fork out between $7 billion to $12 billion to extract the resources ourselves. Currently we have less than $17 billion in our sovereign wealth fun.

Xanana and his crew campaigned on a promise to bring the pipeline onshore, of downstream benefits, of thousands of jobs, of developing the south coast, etc. These promises were popular among some of the intelligentsia, mainly from the PLP faction. But I know that these PLP hacks don't believe in these promises. Many of them are smart enough to do simple analysis, some number crunching, understand global economic trends, etc., to conclude that these promises are empty campaign sloganeering. Yet, they were happy to perpetuate such lies during the campaign. Sad indeed.

So in this blog, I will try to put my thoughts together and reflect on what has just happened and why. What possible future lay ahead of us. Let me know in the comments section, your opinion, objections, or questions you may have. I'll be happy to answer them.

Viva Timor Leste!