Paulina Quintao – A total of 319 women have registered to run for suku (village) chief in the upcoming suku elections.

General Director of the Secretariat for Technical and Electoral Administration (STAE) Acilino Branco said 2071 candidates from 442 sukus across the country had registered to run in the elections, including 1752 men and 319 women.

Under new legislation, it is a requirement that there be at least one female candidate in each suku.

Regarding the sukus which do not have any women candidates registered, he said this would not affect the election process, but women organizations would have to provide an official explanation.

"Every voter should have conscience to use their right to vote so when they go back to their suku they can have good services because we contributed to legitimizing our suku organ," he said at a press conference at the STAE office in Kaikoli, Dili.

Suku elections will be held simultaneously on October 29 in Timor's 2225 sub-villages. On the day, the voters will elect their suku chiefs, sub-villages chiefs and their representatives of each sub-village. After the suku council has been formed members will then choose the traditional elders and a male and female youth representative.

"STAE provides three types of voting papers: a white paper with photo for head of sukus, a yellow paper for head of sub-village and green for the representatives without photos," he said.

After the voting has closed, the sub-village assembly would count the votes and announce the results for head of sub-village and the representatives, while the votes for suku chiefs would be brought to the existing suku council for a final count before the results are formally announced.

According to Branco, the total number of voters registered is 726,363, although it is not compulsory in Timor to vote.

Meanwhile, the Director of Caucus organization "Women in Politics", Paula Corte Real, said that although some sukus still had no female candidates, there had been progress because there were higher numbers of women running for the election compared to previous years.

She said that during the registration process, women faced a number of obstacles because they had no clear information about the specific number of supporters needed to be eligible.

"In Duyun suku (in Dili municipality) we provided a declaration because there are no female candidates and on the candidates' registration day, the woman that we prepared went to Suai for her uncle's funeral," she said.

Meanwhile, in some sukus local authorities had obstructed women's involvement by refusing to approve candidates that had moved from their family's area, but wanted to run for suku chief.

"In the 442 sukus, our expectation is that approximately 50% of women will be elected to as sukus chiefs," she said.

She said that although the number of female candidates had increased, the number elected would depend on voters because in Timorese culture there is still a belief that women could cannot be good leaders.

Source: http://www.thediliweekly.com/en/news/news/14126-319-women-to-run-for-village-chief-in-elections