Local Governance in Timor-Leste - Secretaria de Estado da Arte e ...

Party politics has been one such point of conflict. At all levels of government, theinfluence of party politics tended to be quite divisive, leading to many localperceptions of modern democracy being characterised by conflict, as opposed to lisan,which is aimed at promoting communal cohesion. Political party affiliation for localleaders was first introduced in Decree Law 5/2004. It has since been reversed inDecree Law 3/2009, with local leaders only elected on an individual (not politicalparty) platform. As fieldwork was carried out in 2008, prior to this legislative change,the impact of party politics was still an important issue within local governance. Thisexperience carries with it important lessons for understanding the underlying values atstake around community representation and local legitimacy.Free competition of political parties is a fairly new phenomenon in Timor-Leste.During Indonesian occupation, the only political parties were the three mandated bythe Indonesian government, so it is only since independence that free party politicalcompetition has been a feature of governance within Timor-Leste (Saldanha, 2008:70). Since political parties were first formed preceding the civil war, the experience ofparty politics within Timor-Leste has been quite divisive. The impacts of this conflictbetween political parties continue to reverberate throughout Timorese communities,and continues withing contemporary Timorese politics. A variety of factors, includinglack of experience with party politics and exploitation by political parties of existingfissures within society, has meant that party politics has been experienced as adivisive, intimidating affair. This has also expressed itself within the introduction ofparty politics at the suku level (Brown and Gusmão, 2009).Prior to the introduction of party politics, the most important considerations inselecting local leaders were the candidates' place within the community: whether theycame from the liurai house, their affiliation with family, their experience with localleadership and ability to command respect, and their perceived ability to do the job.The introduction of party politics added an entirely new dimension to communityrepresentation, creating new divisions and threatening community cohesion andstability. Brown and Gusmão (2009: 67) argue that the threat that party politicsrepresented was a direct result of elite-level political conflicts being driven down tothe local level. This perception was reinforced during the political violence of 2006134