Dili – Intra-mural opponents of former Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri's continued leadership of East Timor's dominant FRETILIN party said Monday they hope to convene an extraordinary congress to elect new party leaders.
Vicente Ximenes, an organizer of the FRETILIN Mudanca, or "change" in English, faction told Lusa anti-Alkatiri activists were working for an extraordinary party congress by November, at the latest.
The Timorese are expected to go to the polls in general elections by May of next year.
Ximenes said some 200 FRETILIN activist had met in Dili Saturday to outline strategy for mobilizing support for calling an extraordinary congress in the wake of Alkatiri's unopposed re- election as party secretary-general in May during the country's spiral of violence.
Foreign Minister Jose Lums Guterres would have the faction's backing if he again challenges Alkatiri for the leadership post, Ximenes said.
In anticipation of the faction meeting, FRETILIN's National Political Commission called Friday on party bodies to apply "adequate treatment" to "acts of indiscipline" by party members.
The faction failed last week in its court challenge of Alkatiri's re-election, when Dili's high court ruled that the May congress vote through a raised-hand ballot violated neither national law nor FRETILIN statutes.
In demanding the ouster of Alkatiri, who resigned as prime minister on June 26, President Xanana Gusmao also publicly questioned the "legitimacy" of his re-election as party leader through the show- of-hands vote.
Alkatiri is under investigation on allegations, he denies, that he set up political hits squads during the wave of violence.
Guterres, at the time Dili's ambassador to the United States and the UN, withdrew from the party leadership race when the congress delegates opted for the raised-hand ballot.
Facing no opposition, Alkatiri and his running mate for party chairman, Parliament Speaker Francisco Guterres, took nearly 94% of the vote.
Ximenes said an extraordinary party congress could be convened in one of two ways, either through the resignation of the current leadership, based on statutes that interdict leaders who face investigation on criminal charges, or the demand of two-thirds of the party's district committees.