Dili – East Timor's newly-appointed Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao on Tuesday accused the former ruling party of Fretilin of failing to halt ongoing outbreaks of violence in the tiny nation.

Fretilin won the largest number of votes at June 30 polls but not the majority needed to govern, while Gusmao's party secured a coalition afterwards that holds 37 of the parliament's 65 seats.

The announcement that it would sit in government last week triggered protests from Fretilin, which claims it is an illegal administration, and sporadic violence erupted in Dili and several eastern districts where the party is strongest.

"The politicians do not want to transmit their views to the bottom so as to curb the violence that arose because of their own defeat," Gusmao told a gathering of district heads. He said that he was aware several Fretilin leaders had travelled to their bases, but said they were not there to appease people.

Former Fretilin prime minister Mari Alkatiri, who is spearheading the party's complaints, said on Monday that its leaders intended to tell their supporters to be calm.

"Their politics is that the people should suffer, that they mutually kill each other, that they mutually burn their houses, and mutually damage their possessions," Gusmao said.

The premier said that he planned to summon the Fretilin central committee to ask them whether they wanted to see people in the impoverished nation, which obtained independence in 2002, continue to suffer.

"I will tell them that you (Fretilin members) are the ones that have brought damage to Fretilin, and it is you that have allowed the name of the Fretilin to be sullied," Gusmao said.

Alkatiri said on Monday that others may have been masquerading as Fretilin supporters in an effort to damage the party's reputation.

Many of the apparent instigators of the violence – which has included arson, at least one rape, and rock-throwing – have been shouting pro-Fretilin slogans and waving Fretilin flags, according to witnesses.

East Timor's new government has a massive task healing the nation after unrest on Dili's streets last year left at least 37 dead and forced some 155,000 people from their homes, most of whom are still sheltering in camps.