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

within and across communities are discussed in more detail in chapter seven of thisthesis.The experience of party politics at suku-level governance illustrates the problemsassociated with introducing institutions that undermine existing traditionalinstitutional structures, values and understandings of community. While the differentexperiences in Venilale and Ainaro show that we cannot simplistically draw causeeffectrelationships between political parties and political violence, across bothsubdistricts the influence of party politics was described as opposing the cohesionprovided by family groups governed via uma lulik, deepening existing fissures andpotentially posing a threat to communal stability. This problem was furthercompounded by a lack of education on the policy platforms represented by thepolitical parties, effectively replacing an existing set of values based on individuals'history in working their way up through the hierarchy of traditional leadership, withanother more complicated and less-understood set of values represented by partypolitical competition.5.4 ConclusionThis chapter explores how traditional and modern ideas of socio-political legitimacycombine and interact within the suku of Timor-Leste, viewed through the prism ofkonsellu de suku. Throughout the communities of Timor-Leste, lisan and traditionalinstitutional structures continue to be central to people's lived experience, forming thebasic political environment into which modern institutions and ideals are thenincorporated. The resultant political hybridity holds important implications for howlocal leadership is gained and maintained, and for how democratisation has beenexperienced at the local level. While the konsellu de suku is itself a 'modern'institution, introduced in 2004, it is composed of a mixture of 'old' and 'new'institutional figures, who work within a hybrid local governance environment andwho themselves draw on a mixture of modern and traditional ideas of socio-politicallegitimacy. The everyday politics of mutual recognition as carried out in the suku ofTimor-Leste is eminently practical, as communities and their leaders strategicallyengage with modern and traditional ideas of socio-political legitimacy in order to filltheir various needs and pursue individual political agendas.137