The Constituent Assembly today approved a motion recommending that East Timor's first presidential election be held in the first or second week of April 2002, and that the voting proces

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, Jakarta – The National Awakening Party (PKB), under the leadership of Alwi Shihab, officially dismissed Matori Abdul Djalil on Thursday from the party for disloya

Bambang Nurbianto, Jakarta – The country's highest electoral authority said on Thursday it would soon submit a new bill to the House of Representatives that would impose tighter require

Kurniawan Hari, Jakarta – Firm in its first vote on the contentious issue of presidential elections on Wednesday, the Golkar faction at the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Annual S

Jakarta – A majority of factions in Indonesia's top assembly have agreed to hold the country's first ever direct presidential election in 2004, although the format is still being debate

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – Indonesians will find out next week whether they will be able to vote directly for their choices of president and vice-president in the 2004 election, after the

Derwin Pereira, Jakarta – National Assembly chairman Amien Rais has quietly begun lobbying for the coveted presidential seat in 2004, making regular tours of Indonesian provinces as par

Jakarta – Ousted Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid has said that he is ready to run for the post again if there are no other candidates from his party.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – The election victory on August 30 of Fretilin, the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, sent UN and World Bank officials in Dili into an instant poli

Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – A battle is brewing in Parliament over a move to amend the constitution to enable Indonesians to directly vote for their President and Vice-President by the 200

[The following is the officially certified list of East Timorese who were elected to the Constituent Assembly on the August 30 ballot.

Jana DK, Dili – In its first major mobilisation since the beginning of East Timor's election campaign, on August 25 some 5000 Timorese Socialist Party members and supporters gathered at

Jon Land – Fretilin, the party which declared East Timor independent in 1975 and which was the largest single force in the long fight against occupation, has won 57% of the vote in the

Mark Dodd, Dili – What's in a word? Quite a bit if you are considering running for president of East Timor.

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – There is a palpable mood of relief in East Timor this week after the election in which the country voted overwhelmingly in favor of the leftist nationalist party F

• Total Votes Cast: 384,248
• Total Valid Votes: 363,501
• Invalid Votes: 20,747

National Ballot

Mark Dodd, Dili – Fretilin, the party that led East Timor's 24-year struggle for independence from Indonesia, has won the fledgling nation's first democratic election.

Results of last week's elections in East Timor indicate that the territory's new 88-seat Constituent Assembly will have a total of 24 women members.

Dili – The Chief Electoral Officer of the East Timor's Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), Carlos Valenzuela, today presented the full and final results of the 30 August Constituent

Despite its decision to contest the election process, East Timor's UDT party congratulated Thursday the Fretilin party for its victory in last week's voting for the 88-member Constituen

For Fretilin [East Timor Revolutionary Front] – the party most likely to win the recent Timor Lorosae (TL) elections – there are three main things which need to be maintained [from 1975

The leader of East Timor's ASDT party, Fransico Xavier do Amaral, told Lusa Wednesday in Dili that he would not be a future candidate for president.

Xanana's interview with Tempo magazine:

Tempo: At first you dithered on being nominated as president. But you changed your mind later. Why?

Dili – The winners of last week's historic election in East Timor must listen to the people when drafting a constitution as a prelude to independence, two watchdog groups said Monday.

Jose Ramos Horta said Monday in Dili he was "profoundly sad" about the "unhappy", "lamentable" and "incendiary" criticism of the East Timorese election process leveled by the leader of

Presenter: Sergio Vieira de Mello, head of UNTAET, the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor, has replied to the fraud accusations, made by UDT (Timorese Democratic Union) leader

Lindsay Murdoch in Liquica and agencies – East Timorese kept what the United Nations had called a date with democracy yesterday, voting in the first democratic election of their turbule

Jakarta – Feared ex-militia leader Eurico Guterres declared Thursday a "day of mourning for East Timor" and said its people could end up second-class citizens like Australia's Aborigine

Christine T.

Slobodan Lekic, Dili – Women nursed babies held in shoulder slings and people joked with UN monitors as they waited in long lines to vote Thursday in a election seen as a historic step

Richard Lloyd Parry – Two years to the day after the 1999 referendum on independence, the East Timorese people vote again on Thursday in the first elections to a democratic national ass

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Carlos first introduced himself as a driver. When none of Dili's dilapidated taxis could be found, he would always produce one.

Vaudine England, Dili – East Timor's president-in-waiting, Xanana Gusmao, yesterday restated his belief that amnesties should be considered for people who committed serious crimes.

Jon Land – The August 30 election for East Timor's Constituent Assembly signifies an important step towards the conclusion of the United Nations transitional administration.

The leader of East Timor's Social Democratic Party (PSD) said Monday in Dili he hoped his party would obtain between 30 and 40 percent of the vote in Thursday's Constituent Assembly ele

The upcoming Constituent Assembly elections in East Timor serve "only to comply with the calendar and are neither free nor fair", the leader of the historic UDT party, Joao Carrascalao,

Mark Dodd, Dili – He was East Timor's first president, the head of the short-lived Fretilin administration that unilaterally declared independence in November 1975, 10 days before Indon

Predicting his Fretilin party would win East Timor's first free elections by a landslide, Mari Alkatiri warned the territory's UN transition administration Monday his party could refuse

Fretilin Party Secretary-General Mari Alkatiri has guaranteed there would be no radical behaviour on the part of his party as Fretilin were no longer a communist or socialist party.

James Fox – Parliamentary elections will be held in East Timor on Thursday, two years from the day when the East Timorese turned out en masse to vote for their independence.

Lisbon – East Timor's UN administrator said in a newspaper interview Friday that a broad-based government will be named to govern the territory following next week's elections.

Mark Dodd, Dili – The East Timor independence leader Mr Xanana Gusmao has decided not to retire from politics to grow prize pumpkins for the Dili show.

Dili – It is easy to be optimistic about East Timor's future when you are sitting at the villa of its de facto king – UN diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Lindsay Murdoch, Dare Mulo – Some people wept. Others sang national songs they had rehearsed for days and stamped their bare feet in the dust.

Some East Timorese political forces have set up security-style partisan groups in preparation for next week4s elections but have not generated any problems, UN administration officials

Dili – A US-based election monitoring group said Friday it was satisfied with conditions for East Timor's first free elections next week, but expressed concern over cases of voter intim

Bronwyn Curran, Dili – East Timorese voters are relishing their first-ever taste of democracy but some parties in next week's elections have tried to intimidate them, local poll watchdo

The number two in East Timor's Fretilin party hierarchy, Mari Alkatiri, strongly critized Wednesday the territory's Independent Eletoral Mediation Panel, which has complained about the

Vaudine England, Jakarta – The political party of East Timor's independence heroes, Fretilin, has been accused of using intimidation, threats and "Indonesian-style" campaigning ahead of

Jill Jolliffe, Dili – Apocalyptic predictions are rife in East Timor as the territory approaches political freedom after centuries of Portuguese colonial rule and a quarter century of I