[Source: RDP Antena 1 radio, Lisbon, in Portuguese]

Presenter: The campaign for the parliamentary elections in East Timor, scheduled for the end of this month, is underway. The first party rally organized by the UDT [Timorese Democratic Union] gathered nearly 1,000 people in a Dili football stadium yesterday [12 August]. The party's leader, Joao Carrascalao, presented the five mottoes of UDT's campaign: the fight against poverty, illiteracy, corruption, political lies and social injustice. He also made severe criticisms of Fretilin [Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor]. Antonio Veladas reports on Fretilin's reply to UDT's accusations:

Reporter: The old political rivals UDT and Fretilin seem to have awakened to a new existence of political opposition, 26 years after the ideological dispute which took East Timor to civil war. The UDT has accused its political opponent of promoting an anti-democratic intimidation campaign but Fretilin has countered these accusations. In an attempt to play down UDT's accusations, Mari Alkatiri, the secretary-general of Fretilin [economy minister of the transition government who stood down for campaigning] has said that UDT is the party ignoring the principles of democracy.

Alkatiri: That is Joao Carrascalao's same old story. He has been telling it since 1974 or 1975. Unfortunately he hasn't changed it since. Joao Carrascalao is not going to teach Fretilin how to practice democracy. First of all he will have to establish democracy inside his party in order to know what democracy is. If there had been democracy in the UDT, Joao Carrascalao would no longer be its president.

Reporter: Fretilin answer to Joao Carrascalao's accusations of alleged verbal attacks and threats carried out in the interior of the country by passing them on to the East Timor Democratic Association led by Xavier do Amaral, thus refusing to accept the allegations of anti-democratic acts carried out by its supporters. Mari Alkatiri has said that his party's aim is to achieve 100 per cent of the share of the vote in the 30 August elections.

Alkatiri: We have already guaranteed 80 per cent [of the vote] but we would like to achieve 100 per cent for two reasons: to allow our supporters and our members to carry on their work without excluding others from working as well, and for this reason we want to achieve 100 per cent. We have other reasons, for example, we want to show the world that who fought the war was Fretilin, who brought democracy to Timor was Fretilin and who has been giving the freedom of existence to the other parties is Fretilin.

Reporter: Mari Alkatiri words have set Fretilin's aims very high and reiterated Fretilin's claim to the preservation of democracy in East Timor.