DILI—Eight candidates, including the current prime minister, will contest East Timor's presidential race in April, the national election commission said on Saturday.
The announcement came just days after thousands protested over a raid by international troops on the hideout of fugitive rebel leader Alfredo Reinado who has become as a hero among the impoverished country's restless, unemployed youth.
President Xanana Gusmao, who ordered Reinado's arrest, has called on his countrymen to avoid doing anything that could destroy national unity ahead of the April 9 election that would pave the way for the independence hero's retirement.
"Today is the last day to verify the requirements, and eight candidates have fulfilled all of those requirements," election commission chief Faustino Cardoso told Reuters. "The supreme court and the election commission have ratified them."
AS well as Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who is running as an independent, the pack includes parliamentary chief Francisco Guterres from the ruling Fretilin party and veteran politician Francisco Xavier do Amaral who lost to Gusmao in the 2002 race.
East Timor voted in a 1999 referendum for independence from Indonesia, which had annexed it after Portugal ended its colonial rule in 1975. The country became fully independent in 2002 after a period of U.N. administration.
The recent standoff between Reinado and Australian troops, which killed five rebel supporters, has raised fears of violence ahead of the elections.
Australia, the United States, Great Britain and New Zealand issued travel warnings for their nationals, saying the situation in East Timor was volatile and could deteriorate.
The Reinado chase highlights the east-west divide that is troubling the tiny nation of 1 million people. The country erupted into chaos and gang violence last May when 600 mutinous soldiers from the western region were dismissed.
Reinado, a former major from the west, quit the army out of sympathy with his sacked colleagues and has been a thorn to the government since. He has been on the run since escaping from a Dili jail last August along with 50 other inmates.
Australia, which headed a U.N.-backed intervention force to East Timor in 1999, led a 3,200-strong peacekeeping force back to Dili to combat last year's violence. Canberra still has 800 troops in East Timor, along with 120 New Zealand soldiers.
Australia agreed in January to provide troops to protect the current U.N. mission– approved by the Security Council on Aug. 25 for six months–and rapid response capacity for U.N. police.
In an address to the United Nations last month, Ramos-Horta begged members to "stay the course" with Dili after describing building a state from almost zero as a "Herculean task".
