East Timor ruling party finalising PM candidates

East Timor’s ruling party will give the country’s president a list of prime ministerial candidates tomorrow – and Nobel prize-winning Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta may be on it, party members said.

Fretilin, the party of ousted Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, earlier threatened to block passage of the budget unless President Xanana Gusmao backed one of its nominees, raising fears of a political showdown.

The three candidates under discussion today were Ramos-Horta, an independent and Gusmao ally, and Fretilin members Ana Pessoa and Stanislau da Silva, said Harold Moucho, a senior Fretilin party adviser.

Finding a replacement for Alkatiri is seen as key to ending months of violence and political unrest in East Timor.

Alkatiri’s dismissal of 600 soldiers in March – nearly half of the armed forces – sparked street battles in the capital Dili that spilled into gang warfare and widespread looting and arson by machete-wielding youths.

At least 30 people were killed and 150,000 others forced from their homes in the worst unrest since East Timor’s bloody break for independence from often brutal Indonesian rule seven years ago.

“We are finalising the names for the prime minister post, and we will give the list to the president tomorrow morning,” said Elizario Ferreiara, a senior official in Fretilin, which controls 55 of 88 seats in parliament.

Violence in East Timor eased following the arrival of some 2,700 international peacekeepers six weeks ago, with stores and restaurants reopening and children gleefully playing in a public park.

But Australian armed personnel carriers rumbled by often, as other foreign troops guarded major intersections and facilities amid fears the unstable political situation could erupt into street protests and clashes again.

Some opponents of Alkatiri – who said he wanted to remain a parliamentarian, giving him immunity from prosecution – threatened to stage a massive rally next week if politicians let him hold on to his seat.

“It’s a forced peace,” said Mario Carrascalao, a former governor of East Timor when it was an Indonesian province. “It’s peaceful because so many soldiers and tanks are going around, but nothing has been done to solve the fundamental problems.”

Tent camps filled with thousands of displaced people dot the seaside capital, and the United Nations has warned in recent days that the country of just 800,000 was facing severe food shortages.

Ramos-Horta, who won the 1996 Peace Prize for non-violently helping end his nation’s occupation by Indonesia, assumed the role of defence and interior ministers after the latest bloodshed and now heads the caretaker government.

He toured Dili today to assure people that he and other leaders were doing all they could to speed an end to the crisis, calling on them to be patient.

“Whoever has violated the law will be brought to court,” Ramos-Horta said, while visiting Becora district. “And we’re working now on how to get ... civil servants back to work and to get people out of refugee camps.”