Jill Jolliffe, Oecussi – East Timor's revolutionary hero, Xanana Gusmao, was met by enthusiastic village crowds this week as the stage was set for him to become president of the 21st century's first new nation.
Whoever wins presidential elections on April 14 will be sworn into office on East Timor's independence day, May 20, taking power from the transitional United Nations administrator, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
The inauguration will mark a new phase in East Timor's history, after 300 years of Portuguese colonial rule and 24 years of Indonesian military occupation. UN-supervised parliamentary elections in August last year were won by the nationalist Fretilin party.
In Oecussi, the tiny enclave of the former Portuguese territory set in Indonesian West Timor, Mr Gusmao told a spellbound crowd: "Indonesia has been independent for more than 50 years, but its people still don't have freedom. Is this real independence? We want democracy. That means active participation, improving the life of the little people."
But with time running out to nominate for the presidential race, he refused to state his intentions. "I'm very busy right now," was his enigmatic reply to a question from the Oecussi audience.
Nominations close today and, as he spoke, the only registered candidate was Francisco Xavier do Amaral, the aging leader of the Timorese Social Democrat Association, who will be automatically elected if Mr Gusmao does not stand.
The former guerilla commander has said repeatedly he does not wish to be president, but to retire to private life with his Australian wife and young son. But it is clear the citizens of the nation-in-waiting will hear nothing of this.
On Tuesday the Nobel laureate Bishop Carlos Belo told local journalists: "Xanana is a great revolutionary fighter. We shouldn't betray his struggle. "For the international community he is the only one with the reputation. They know his work with refugees and in restoring our relations with Indonesia." Diplomats in Dili have discreetly encouraged his nomination. Sources say Washington, Canberra and Jakarta see him as the desirable candidate.
The excuse for Mr Gusmao's visit to Oecussi was his figurehead position with East Timor's Planning Commission, a role created for him by the UN after last year's parliamentary elections. It has allowed him to renew contacts with the people in the run-up to the presidential poll.
He has not belonged to a political party since he left Fretilin in 1983 to rebuild East Timor's resistance to Indonesian occupation on cross-party lines. He did not compete in the 2001 parliamentary vote, and his closest political allies went their separate ways.
Some were elected for Fretilin, while others opted for the opposition Social Democrat or Democrat parties. He seemed like a politician without a power base.
The Planning Commission's work is to formulate a long-term development plan for East Timor, by gathering statistics at the village level and boosting the involvement of common people in shaping the future. It is a perfect forum for the former guerilla leader, and, in effect, a political leg-up from the UN.
It was meant to be a workshop for 70 local people at church at Numbey, on the Oecussi coast, but the magnet of Mr Gusmao was so strong that about 1000 eventually filled the building.
Don't be afraid to challenge government, he told them. A government shouldn't be like a house where you're peering in the windows from outside – you can be part of it.