Xanana Calls For Lu Olo To End Fretilin Influence

December 24, 2024

National

Xanana Calls For Lu Olo To End Fretilin Influence ^Featured

By Jose Sarito Amaral May 18, 2018 1359

Xanana

DILI:Xanana Gusmao has called on Timor-Leste’s President Francisco Lu Olo Guterres to cease his Fretilin party influence, in a bid to end a prolonged political impasse that has stalled parliament since January.

A legislative stalemate has dominated Timor-Leste’s politics since a coalition of opposition parties, led by Gusmao and with the majority of seats in parliament, refused to pass Fretilin’s government program.

Gusmao, the President of Timor-Leste’s Alliance of Change for Progress (AMP) coalition party that took a majority 49.6% of votes in Saturday’s parliamentary election, said Lu Olo must listen to all people.

“I supported Lu Olo to become the President of the Republic not the President for Fretilin. He must show that he is the President for all Timorese People,’’ Gusmao told reporters on Tuesday.

Lu Olo is the country’s first party-affiliated president, standing as president of the Fretilin party when he was sworn in as the President of Timor-Leste in May 2017.

The comments come as post election debate turns to how fast a new government program, stalled for almost 10 months, can be brought in

With the AMP coalition winning an absolute majority in the weekend election, securing 34 of 65 seats in the parliament it now has sufficient weight to pass the program and budget in the parliament. Both of which the previous Fretilin minority government could not do.

Manuel Tilman, a lawyer, said the AMP party needed the President to promulgate the state budget after parliament approved it.