Sue Ingram – On 8 August 2012 the Fifth Constitutional Government of Timor-Leste, formed following Parliamentary elections on 7 July and led by Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, was sworn in by President Taur Matan Ruak (better known as TMR).
The speeches given on the occasion of the swearing-in by the Prime Minister and the President were rather different in theme and tone. The PM's speech was upbeat: he hailed the achievements of the government he had led over the preceding five years in breaking the cycle of violence that had plagued Timor in the initial years following its independence in 2002, and committed the new government to consolidating stability and bringing progress and welfare to all Timorese.
The policy priorities which he outlined in his speech – health, education, social protection, infrastructure, building the non-oil economy – drew on the themes of the twenty-year Strategic Development Plan which his previous government had developed and seen through Parliament in 2011.
In contrast, the President's speech focussed on the immediate challenges confronting the country, and the language was uncompromising:
To build the country we dream of we have ahead of us battles so hard and stringent as the battles we have had in the past.... No one disputes that in the last ten years we have made significant progress. Yet as we look around us and analyse the situation of the country, what do we see? We see very low levels of income, a fragile economic fabric, high external dependence, low levels of infrastructure, unbalanced regional development, with unruly urban growth and large differences among cities and with rural areas, low levels of wellbeing, a weak administrative structure and low technical and scientific wellbeing.
The President's remarks reflected a broad concern about the extent of the urban/rural divide and patterns of social inequality in Timor-Leste. While the flow of petroleum revenue has pushed up economic growth and gross national income, the statistics belie the real living conditions of much of the population. Timor-Leste remains in the low human development segment of UNDP's Human Development Index, only slightly ahead of PNG and just behind Pakistan and Bangladesh. Data included in the 2011 Strategic Development Plan [pdf] indicate that almost half the population lives below the poverty line and 58 percent of children are stunted due to malnutrition.
Around 75 percent of the population lives outside the urban areas and is largely dependent on subsistence agriculture. Opportunities for wage labour are limited, with earnings otherwise coming from the sale of coffee or small agricultural surpluses. An important distributional initiative of the last government was the introduction of pensions for the elderly and disabled, poor female-headed households and veterans. While individual payments are modest, in total over $US100million is distributed annually, much of which goes into rural households. Prime Minister Gusmao, in his swearing-in speech, undertook to embed the assistance scheme.
While social transfers are bringing cash into rural communities, the reach and quality of other government services in these areas remains relatively poor. The UN Transitional Administration controversially established a highly centralised government administration despite some strong calls for a much more deconcentrated model. After independence, successive governments have put decentralisation on the public policy agenda, but so far it has gone no further. In his swearing-in speech, PM Gusmao foreshadowed action on decentralisation, although it is unclear from his statement what form it will take.
While the countryside languishes the capital, Dili, has become a boom town. The process began under the UN Transitional Administration: the city was cashed up by the international presence and became a magnet for internal migrants and returnees from across the border in West Timor. Dili's population has almost doubled in the last decade and the last census showed a disproportionate number of males, most marked in the 20-39 age group. Job opportunities, however, fall well short of the numbers entering the labour market.
How will these issues play out in the life of the government, and what influence is the President likely to have?
Under Timor-Leste's constitution, power to initiate policy and legislation is concentrated in the Prime Minister, working as necessary through the Parliament. The President, however, has important powers to influence the direction of public policy, including through the request for judicial review of legislation and through the exercise of legislative veto.
The first government after independence involved a very uncomfortable cohabitation between a politically opposed Prime Minister and President, and then President Gusmao used both his moral authority and his formal powers to stymie key policies of the Alkitiri government. Cohabitation arguably re-emerged in the latter years of the last government as PM Gusmao and President Horta diverged, most obviously over fiscal policy.
President TMR is a close ally of PM Gusmao: their relationship goes back to the days of the resistance struggle and TMR took over as on-the-ground leader of the armed wing after Gusmao was captured and imprisoned by Indonesian forces in 1992. The PM threw his considerable authority as charismatic leader and national hero (although, as he was careful to distinguish, not as PM) behind TMR's run-off campaign for President. But as TMR settles into his role, will he seek to shape the policy agenda? He has already shown he is no rubber stamp, objecting to the Prime Minister's nominee for Minister for Defence who was subsequently withdrawn. More recently, he has used his public declaration of assets as a platform to advocate "clean and self-disciplined politics" and to decry the corruption that "is slowly and insidiously infecting our society".
Prime Minister Gusmao is no stranger to the effects of Presidential activism and may be anxious to forestall it in the current term. In his swearing-in speech, the Prime Minister addressed the following words directly to the President: "We believe that the working relationship between our two institutions will be guided by a spirit of cooperation, trust and solidarity." Presumably no Prime Minister – or President for that matter – can find much joy in cohabitation.
[Sue Ingram is a PhD student with State, Society and Governance in Melanesia, researching post-conflict political settlements in Timor-Leste and Bougainville. Sue has previously worked as a senior executive with the Australian Government, held senior posts in UN and regional peacekeeping and stabilisation missions and worked as a governance consultant. The original title of this article was: "Will Timor's development challenges push a close political marriage down the path of executive cohabitation?".]
Commentary by Damien Kingsbury
Your article on 'cohabitation' raises two interesting points.
I think everyone agrees that while there has been significant progress in Timor-Leste over the past several years, much remains to be done. In one sense, the PM's speech was 'glass half full', while the President's speech was 'glass half empty'. The actual amount in the 'glass' remains the same.
Importantly, the PM's vision for development focuses on 'front end' spending, which has been heavily criticised, with good reason, by organisations such as Lao Hamutuk. In short, spending now to buy a better future may not work, is financially unsustainable and produces a range of further problems, not least of which is corruption. Although the President does not have an economic plan for Timor-Leste as such, he appears to be promoting a similar approach.
The real issue, though, as you note, perhaps focuses more on decentralisation, to ensure the spread of benefits more widely across Timor-Leste's society. As you will be aware, the decentralisation program – which is constitutionally mandated – has been delayed a number of times, primarily due to disagreement over the extent of devolution of authority. Politicians rarely enjoy giving up power or financial control of resources. The current plan is, therefore, for a minimalist form of decentralisation to take place in 2014. That plan now appears to be on track, although the extent of its impact will probably be reduced in line with the reduction in the financial and administrative scope of the new local governments.
The central issue in the article, however, concerned 'cohabitation'. This raises two matters, the first of which is that 'cohabitation' between the PM and the President does not imply any greater effectiveness in addressing development issues – there is simply no logical connection between the two. Part of the issue is that 'cohabitation' means that executive responsibility is shared between the PM and the President, and the term was developed in conjunction with the other term sometimes used to describe Timor-Leste's political system: 'semi-presidentialism'. In such systems, the President usually has responsibility for external affairs, with the PM retaining responsibility for internal affairs. This does not describe the status of Timor-Leste's political system not, without significant constitutional change, can it. The point is, though, that under 'cohabitation', the President is not involved in economic planning. Even if the President did have some executive economic responsibility, there is no guarantee that this would lead to better development outcomes, especially if the President did not work in lock-step with the rest of the government.
You are right to note that the first post-independence government saw considerable friction between the PM and the President. This was because Gusmao optedg for the presidency before the constitution was adopted, historical anomosities between himself and the PM, and the (Weberian) charismatic status that Gusmao held at the time which was not equalled by the PM. Similarly, President Ramos-Horta attempted to involve himself in executive matters on a couple of occasions, with results that cannot be described as constructive. None of this supported an argument for constitutional change.
It is true that, as President, TMR rejected the nomination of the defence minister. In this, he clearly went beyond his constitutional authority, which requires him to 'follow' the recommendation of the PM on such matters. But to keep the peace, Gusmao acceded. The President's power to send legislation for review provides a limited check but, as the constitution clearly notes, even if he vetoes legislation, the parliament can still overturn the veto and pass the legislation. In this sense, the President does have a moderate power, but it is one of a limited 'check and balance', not one of initiative. And again, this does not imply a tendency towards cohabitation.
The importance of this discussion is, I think, that with some degree of continuing confusion about the status of the President within Timor-Leste (mostly due to a lack of familiarity with the constitution), should there be a serious disagreement between the PM and the President, it could potentially lead to civil strife. This would especially be the case had the PM and the President been elected from opposing political camps. Fortunately, however, they were not, so this scenario is much less likely. However, while the President is encouraged to assume powers beyond those identified in the constitution, there will continue to be potential for further errors of 'competency', such as that when the previous president engaged in discussion with the Australian government over the establishment of an asylum seeker processing centre in Timor-Leste. Had the President more regard for his (limited) constitutional powers, he would have deferred such a proposal to the PM, where it would have been quietly and quickly rejected. Let's hope, then, that TMR, as President, respects the constitutional limitations of his office and that, the government exercising its constitutional authority, ensures that the benefits of develop are shared more evenly by the people of Timor-Leste.