Dili – Francisco Xavier do Amaral, 66, only had nine days as East Timor's first president in 1975. More than a quarter of a century later, he is bidding for his old position – the only rival to reluctant but formidable presidential candidate, independence hero Xanana Gusmao.

East Timorese voters will on April 14 choose one of the two to lead the tiny half-island as it graduates to full independence on May 20.

Amaral began secretly campaigning for East Timor's independence in the 1960s when it was a neglected but harshly-ruled Portuguese colony. In May 1974, a month after a revolution at home in Portugal presaged an end to its 400-year rule over East Timor, Amaral founded the pro-independence Timorese Social Democratic Party (ASDT) and took up its presidency. In September of that year the ASDT was transformed into Fretilin, with Amaral still at the helm.

On November 28, 1975, following a brief civil war, Amaral declared East Timor's independence and was appointed president. Nine days later East Timor's first head of state fled into the jungles as neighbouring Indonesia invaded the territory – the beginning of its often brutal 24-year occupation.

Amaral fought with the Falantil guerrillas, the military wing of Fretilin, until he was captured by Indonesian troops in 1979 and brought to Bali island. There he was kept under loose house arrest until 1984 when he was transferred to Jakarta – officially still under house arrest, but able to move around freely.

East Timorese finally got their own say and voted to split from Indonesia in a United Nations-supervised ballot on August 30, 1999, triggering an orgy of killing and destruction by Indonesian soldiers and their proxy militias.

Fear gripped East Timorese living in Jakarta, including Amaral, as rumours swirled of intelligence agents hunting down independence supporters. Amaral fled again, this time to the Indonesian island of Batam where a businessman friend took him into hiding. After three weeks he was secretly flown out of Indonesia to Portugal, where he stayed until the following January.

He returned to his devastated homeland on February 4, 2000, finding 80 percent of its infrastructure destroyed by Indonesian soldiers and militias, and his compatriots grieving for hundreds of slaughtered relatives.

In May 2001, as East Timor prepared for its first ever democratic elections, Amaral revived the ASDT. It won six of 88 seats in the August 30 polls for a Constituent Assembly, which will become the parliament after independence.