President accepts PM Xanana's resignation

The President officially accepted Xanana's request to vacate the seat of the prime minister (did he have another choice?) yesterday. Tempo Semanal has posted Xanana's 4-page letter of resignation where he also appointed (suggested) Dr Rui Araujo as his successor.

In the same letter Xanana also went as far as to say how he could not find anyone suitable in his own party, CNRT, or in his coalition to replace him. According to the letter, Xanana chose Dr Rui, a senior cadre in the opposition FRETILIN party, as his successor for "his deep knowledge of the financial system, a wide experience which can not be underestimated, on the model applied to capacitate technical staff, implemented during his years in the ministry as an adviser, and his integrity." (Dr Rui has been working at the ministry of finance as an advisor for some years).

Apparently, the CNRT as a party had decided to give up its right to deliberate on important issues such as appointments of cabinet positions, including that of the head of the executive. Instead, at last year's CNRT conference, delegates decided to give the CNRT president, Xanana, the power to decide on these issues exclusively. A political observer friend explained that last year, when Xanana called the CNRT conference to discuss his resignation plans, most of the delegates, including the key CNRT leaders, rejected this move. Delegates convinced Xanana to reconsider his resignation and as a compromise, they gave him the power to decide on issues of government restructure, reshuffle, etc., etc. So the 4-page letter continues (note: the Tempo Semanal English translation contains spelling and grammatical errors):

Companion you gave me, another option for the pm to choose some within the coalition government to be the new PM. The reshuffle has a profound objective. The reshuffle will have no mean if just the exercise of taking people, to reduce the financial burden and transfer people to give appearance of electoral legitimacy. 

Yesterday I told you (03/02), I accepted the reason ‘legitimacy’ as subject of discussion. Today I avoided that debate on purpose so you would feel this confortable on thinking and talking about the hole reshuffle. From my part I think I made clear enough in several occasion the thought behind my options in choosing the “People”. 

I understand, with total empathy the worry on been seen as incapable, reason why we need the help of FRETILIN to implement the program.

Members of PD's leadership, a key partner in the coalition, have refused to make any comments except to adopt a wait-and-see. Indeed, the next process will be for the new government lead by Dr Rui to gain endorsement from the majority of the members of parliament. But, with Xanana strongly rumored to be a member of Dr Rui's government (a different story to tell altogether), and with FRETILIN making up a huge chunk of the MPs, resistance to the formation of this government would be hard.

The swearing in of the new government is scheduled to take place this Friday at 3 pm.

Source

Stay tuned.