Dili – For the third time in as many months, East Timor's people lined up and voted in high numbers. But the show of democracy could not mask mounting challenges facing Asia's newest nation five years after it proclaimed independence.
Its 1 million people are increasingly dependent on the international community for food and safety, the political elite is bitterly divided and the economy is in tatters. Some experts say the nation may be on the path to becoming a failed state.
Parliamentary elections were held on Saturday and early counts indicate a tight race between the new party of independence hero Xanana Gusmao and the ruling Fretilin.
None of the 14 competing parties are expected to win a simple majority needed to form a government and elect a prime minister, meaning a possibly lengthy period of coalition talks will be needed.
The vote count continued Tuesday and showed Fretilin with a lead of nearly 19,000 ballots over Gusmao's National Congress for the Reconstruction of East Timor. The results were based on 247,000 counted ballots, or nearly 50 percent of those registered to vote.
Turnout figures were not available, although officials have said they were high. Final results are not expected until later this week.
Campaigning for the polls and two earlier rounds of voting for president was mostly peaceful but divisive, driving the country's political leaders further apart when reconciliation was needed, election advisers and political observers said.
East Timor descended into fear and lawlessness last year when clashes between security forces morphed into widespread gang warfare, looting and arson in the seaside capital, Dili. At least 37 people were killed and 155,000 driven from their homes.
The 2007 "failed states index," compiled by the independent Washington-based not-for-profit Fund for Peace and published in the latest edition of Foreign Policy magazine, ranked East Timor 20th in the "alert" category, behind Sudan, Iraq, Somalia and Zimbabwe, among others. The ratings are based on 12 social, economic, political and military indicators measured in 177 countries.
East Timor's lowest grade was in state legitimacy, largely due to the unclear circumstances last June when Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri resigned during the violence under pressure from political opponents.
"The pressures facing East Timor are particularly destabilizing because it is such a new country without established institutions," said Joelle Burbank, a Fund for Peace research associate. "Government legitimacy in a new country is particularly important, making East Timor's poor score in this category that much more destabilizing."
Indonesia's troops unleashed a scorched earth campaign after the country voted to break free from Jakarta-rule in 1999 in a U.N-sponsored ballot, destroying as much as 70 percent of the infrastructure. Thousands of homes and businesses were torched last year.
Despite sizable offshore oil and gas reserves, around half of East Timor's work force is unemployed and 40 percent of the population lives in poverty. Aid agencies warned last month that nearly 200,000 people, a fifth of the population, face severe food shortages.
"There are no jobs. Besides, there is still no guarantee that we are safe on our way to work," said Xisto Carlos, 24, who was two semesters away from graduating in computer science when his home was torched. "We can't say the past five years have been good years for us," he said.
East Timor's leaders and the United Nations say foreign troops will be needed for years. "The major problem is security, state authority," said Alkatiri. "People need to feel again this state has its own authority. It's own power to deal with the problems."
He dismisses talk of a failed state. "This is a transitional period, from the full destruction of the country, to the reconstruction. You can only really talk of a failed country after 20 or 30 years of independent government, not after 4 or 5 years," Alkatiri said.
The United Nations, which administered East Timor until it became an independent state in 2002, was winding down its mission when the unrest flared. By May 2007, it had ratcheted its staff back up to more than 2,800, including 1,600 police officers from 39 countries.
Much of the future depends on the ability of the resistance era-foes to work together, experts say. "If not, I fear for our stability and the possibility that we will become a failed state," said Julio Tomas Pinto, a professor of political science at East Timor's La Paz University.