AP confirms. What can you say really?

This came from a FRETILIN media release yesterday:

FRETILIN’s leader in the Timor-Leste National Parliament, Aniceto Guterres today called on all parties to respect a Constitutional Court ruling against the petition by FRETILIN MPs that the National Petroleum Authority was unconstitutional.

In a written judgment dated 16 June 2009, and delivered to FRETILIN MPs yesterday, the court rejected the arguments of unconstitutionality regarding Government Decree Law 20/2008 of 19 June 2008.

FRETILIN has been on this non-stop for months now. The party has used every opportunity it has had to speak out against heavy-fuel power plants. Guterres added, "We all have to respect the court decision and urge all concerned to comply with it – no more, no less."

The point of the press release is to state how FRETILIN follows the rules, so to speak. It seems odd to me.

I was riding my motorbike to the Dili Weekly office in Colmera when I saw a familiar face with a trolley bag go into the travel agency on the corner. It was none other than the 80-year-old German man who appeared in court on Tuesday facing charges of the alleged sexual assault of an 11-year-old boy.

I raced around to the office, parked my bike and ran to the travel agency. I hung about outside for a minute and then opened the door and poked my head around. Sure enough, he was sat down and in the process of buying a ticket.

Ever graceful, I tried to leave quietly and ended up slamming the door on my foot and making a lot of noise. I caled UNPOL and found out it had already been called in, most likely by the police guy I saw outside the travel agency when I was loitering.

So what are the conditions of his release? Is he free to leave the country? Nobody seems sure. Suffice to say, he was planning to go somewhere.

Is it Thursday? I've lost track what with being homeless until Friday. So here's a song that caught my attention today.

I think this is bad news as it will likely mean a delay to the suco (village) elections that are supposed to happen in September. There were rumblings of this last week. The problem with the election law, as I understand it, is this new "package" system whereby candidates don't run as individuals.

You have this system of electing suco chiefs, elders, youths and so on to make up the suco council. Normally you'd vote for each position individually, but the package system means candidates run in collectives.

If you vote for a particular candidate for suco chief, he or she will come with other members of the council attached. Some women's groups, in particular, were in favour of this system as it would probably have meant more women getting elected.

The FRETILIN opposition party has been vocal about this because candidates would also have been barred from representing political parties. It doesn't mean that couldn't have had an affiliation, but they wouldn't have been on the voting forms as Miguel Carlos from PSD, or suchlike.

The suco elections are important for all communities in Timor-Leste and it would be a shame to have a political conflict get in the way of them happening this year.