“The program does not reflect the needs and the current context of our people and our country as well as not reflective of the capacity of this government to execute them within its five-year mandate.”

Fretilin rejected the proposed program on Thursday in National Parliament following the presentation of it by Prime Minister Taur Matan Ruak.

The opposition party labeled the government as being “weak,” offering “us no faith that it will be able to execute the program as presented.”

Fretilin criticized the data presented by Ruak, labeling it as “fake, in a large part, and not up to date in others.”

“Considering that in 8 years the government has only managed to build 31 pre-school buildings, we do not believe that 100 buildings will be built/rehabilitated in 5 years,” the statement said.

The party also questioned how the South Coast Development could be listed as the “determinant factor to instill Timor-Leste's economic growth without ensuring certainty on the development of the Greater Sunrise field.”

“We have to be realistic about the resources at our disposal and the capacity (which we lack) to achieve these objectives,” the statement said.

Fretilin honed in on the new government’s own parliamentarian member reaction that it said “commented that the program was incoherent and inconsistent.”

The rejection follows some ten months of political paralysis in Timor-Leste when the Fretilin government’s own program was rejected during its recent time in power.