Lisbon – East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao says he would like to quit but will stay in the job to help his recently independent country grow. "If I could, I'd quit today," Gusmao said in an interview published Wednesday in daily paper Diario de Noticias.

"I keep telling my people that I was pushed into being president, I was chosen by them, but I don't want to be president. But they can count on me to defend their interests," Gusmao was quoted as saying.

Gusmao, 56, took office five months ago in the former Portuguese colony. A popular freedom fighter against Indonesian occupation, Gusmao was reluctant to contest the country's first presidential election. He said he preferred to spend time on his hobbies such as photography and writing poetry.

Gusmao was on a five-day state visit to Portugal to appeal for investment in East Timor where more than 45 percent of the 850,000 people are desperately poor and more than 50 percent of the population is younger than 20.

The United Nations ran the country for two years after 1999 when an overwhelming majority of East Timorese opted for independence from Indonesia, which had occupied the former Portuguese colony in 1975.

That transitional period should have been a time of preparation for full independence, Gusmao said, but the time was mostly spent "ensuring security and filling an administrative vacuum."

While in Portugal, Gusmao was due to undergo treatment for a back problem.