Emerging Asia, 2. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press; Chicago: University of Chicago Press [distributor], 2016. 335 pp. (Tables.) US$124.00, cloth. ISBN 978-90-8964-804-4.
In June 2006, after the splintering of the young country’s security sector and the outbreak of communal violence in Dili, Timor-Leste’s President José Alexandre “Xanana” Gusmão delivered a long emotional speech in which he declared: “The President of the Republic is a sovereign organ. One single person, I myself am this Organ of Sovereignty.” For those unfamiliar with Portuguese and other Lusophone-country constitutions, the statement was bewildering; for others, it occasioned jokes. But there was no uncertainty about the ultimatum that followed: “Either ask your Comrade [Prime Minister] Mari Alkatiri to be responsible for this big crisis and the survival of the Democratic state ruled by law, or tomorrow I will submit my letter to the National Parliament to inform [it] that I have resigned as President of the Republic….” Faced with the choice, Alkatiri submitted his own letter of resignation, setting the stage for Gusmão to appoint José Ramos-Horta, a political independent and Gusmão-ally, as interim prime minister, and to request a new UN peacekeeping force. Even so, the political crisis, which included the displacement of more than 100,000 people, dragged on for a full year until new national elections could be held and Gusmão emerged as the country’s next prime minister.
Scholarship on Timor-Leste’s political development often employs the 2006–2007 crisis as a gauge either of all that was wrong or of all that has subsequently been achieved. For skeptics, the crisis was evidence of the failures of the UN mission that ushered the country from the 1999 referendum to the restoration of independence in 2002, of the deep-seated political cleavages emanating from the aborted process of decolonization in 1975, and even of the failure of East Timorese to fully embrace democracy. For others, the decade since the crisis charts the great successes of the Gusmão administrations and their continuation under Gusmão’s handpicked successor, Rui Maria de Araújo. It is into these muddy waters that Rui Feijó’s new book, Dynamics of Democracy in Timor-Leste, wades and shines an illuminating beam of light.
If the 1999 referendum signaled the promise of representative government, the constitution (ratified in 2001) was a blueprint for its operation. But the writing of the constitution was contentious, its interpretation contested and enabling legislation slow to see the light of day. Feijó’s first chapter provides a theoretical discussion of what democracy is and what it should be, highlighting the distinction between and intersection of horizontal and vertical accountability. The next chapter assesses a long list of Timor-Leste’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats at the time of the UN interregnum. Rejecting simplistic, one-size-fits-all formulas of international best practice, Feijó writes that, “a bumpy track on a dirt road in the beautiful mountains of Timor is a better illustration of the way ahead than a road on the Dili seafront recently paved to international standards” (127).
The chapters that follow address the critical issues of constitution writing under the UN, national elections, the semi-presidential system, and the promise of decentralization. Chapter 3 examines the difficult circumstances under which the first elections were held for a Constituent Assembly (CA) and the short-time frame set for it to write the constitution, revealing tensions between the terms “old” and “new” constitutionalists, which is shorthand for the Fretilin majority and those who opposed Fretilin. For Feijó, however, the fundamental problem was less the content of the constitution, which broadly followed a Lusophone model, than the decision to transform the CA into the country’s first parliament. “The result was that open political competition for elected posts prescribed in the constitution was delayed until 2007 and distorted by political choices” (151).
National elections are the focus in chapter 4. Feijó begins with a useful survey of electoral legislation, management, and levels of participation, before devoting separate sections to presidential elections (with a highlight on the success of “independent” candidates) and parliamentary elections. Drawing these strands together, the chapter ends with a discussion of regional variation in electoral results (which was particularly pronounced in 2007) and the role of personalities (with particular attention drawn to Gusmão’s “outstanding and charismatic persona”). In Feijó’s view, Timor-Leste’s performance has been overwhelmingly positive, though he does note that, “the 2012 elections reinforced the tendency for bipolarization around FRETILIN and [Gusmão’s] CNRT” (201). The reasons for this clearly go beyond institutional design, party loyalty or even personalities, and hinge in fundamental ways on the size, allocation, and even abuse of the state budget. Building on this, chapter 5 provides a close examination of semi-presidentialism in Timor-Leste, combining a sophisticated theoretical discussion with a highly positive appraisal of how the system has served the young country. In Feijó’s view, semi-presidentialism brought cleavages “inside the boundaries of constitutionally defined settings”, and hence imposed restraint (226). Gusmão, once again, is the hero of the story. The final chapter on “grassroots democracy” focuses largely on the still unfulfilled promise of decentralization.
This book will be of interest to a wide audience. For those concerned with questions of institutional design and the challenges of its implementation, the book provides a sophisticated account of semi-presidentialism and an encouraging perspective on democratic participation in newly independent states. For those familiar with Timor-Leste’s politics, the book calls into question many common assumptions and challenges the piecemeal approach to technical legal issues, the security sector, state administration, and a host of other sectors. For those in search of a primer on the first decade of independence, however, some companion reading is recommended to bring to life the major and lesser-known personalities and events, economic policies, and foibles involved in the building of this “common house” of democracy. While Feijó’s overall assessment of democracy in Timor-Leste is positive, he remains realistic: “Stability, which has marked Timor-Leste’s development in recent years, cannot therefore be equated with the consolidation of democracy” (290).
Douglas Kammen
National University of Singapore, Singapore
pp. 870-872