max lane

The second round vote for the President of Timor Leste has been announced. The two candidates were Lu’olo (Francisco Guterres), a candidate put forward by FRETILIN and Taur Matan Ruak (José Maria Vasconcelos), a non-party candidate, being supported by Xanana Gusmao, current prime minister and president of the political party, National Council for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT). In the first round there were 12 candidates, Lu’Olo and Matan Ruak were the top two scoring 28% and 23% respectively. Other candidates who had relatively strong showings were current president, Jose Ramos Horta, who was a non-party candidate as well as Fernando de Araújo, president of the Democratic Party (PD), and currently speaker of the parliament. The PD has been a member of the current coalition government led by Xanana Gusmao and the CNRT.  Both Araujo and President Horta scored similar votes at around 18%.

In the second round Matan Ruak (TMR) won with 61% to Lu’olo’s 39%. (Figures rounded).

This was a very strong win for TMR, beyond what the figures show: however it is a win that still leaves some basic questions unanswered. Below are some notes on based on observations from afar and chats with contacts in TL on the elections, and on the prospects for new emerging forces to play a role.

At a raising of the PST flag in a village Timor, 2011.

 Reading the results?

The absence of any ongoing, reliable polling processes as well as of an extensive media, including district based media, makes it very difficult for the outside observer (and perhaps also even Timorese political actors) to know for sure what the mass of the population are thinking about politics. The majority of the population lives in rural village communities, more-or-less based on subsistence agriculture, geo-politically separated from the gossip-intense hot house of Dili (and even Bacau). An outside observer, such as myself, is very dependent on information and judgments of Timorese contacts, in whose judgments one has confidence.

FRETILIN’s failure to rebuild after 2007 vote collapse Read more…

Malaysia: Socialists at forefront of changing politics
By Max Lane

On July 29, six leaders of the Malaysian Socialist Party (PSM) were released from prison, 34 days after their arrest on June 25. Their release was a result of the tremendous sustained and energetic campaign that received broad support, especially in Malaysia. Thirty members of the Malaysian Socialist Party (PSM) were arrested on charges of “waging war against the king” on June 25, as they were handing out leaflets calling for the resignation of the Malaysian government. Twenty-four were released soon after, but six remained in detention. They were also accused of attempting to revive communism in Malaysia, an accusation based on the fact that in the bus they were using, police found t-shirts with pictures of Ching Peng, the former chairperson of the now defunct Communist Party of Malaysia (MCP), which led a guerrilla war against British colonial rule in the 1950s and 1960s.

After being released on day seven of their arrest on the above charges, they were rearrested on the spot under an Emergency Ordinance. The formal justification for this was changed twice – the last version claimed that they were a threat to public order and accused of being the organisers of a demonstration for electoral reform. They were kept in solitary confinement, subjected to long interrogations, denied serious access to lawyers and family and physically abused, including hours-long standing interrogations. Two detainees were taken to clinics due to heart conditions.

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Release all those detained and Stop on-going crackdown on Malaysian Socialists
Stop repressing democratic rights of Malaysian People!
 Bebaskan mereka yang ditahan dan Hentikan Kekerasan terhadap kaum Sosialis Malaysia
Hentikan Represi terhadap Hak-hak demokratik rakyat Malaysia! 
 
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It is new and unfamiliar to me too but check out the website http://www.myspace.com/uppmaxlane 

It is a site which contains information about and the music of the band “MAX LANE”.

The piece “Pembukaan” uses excerpts from a speech from Pramoedya Ananta Toer

15 October, 2007

It was a less than ordinary building on an ordinary road, an unattractive street despite the trees that lined it. Yes, it was an unattractive avenue adorned with buildings constructed on the cheap and for function only. Cables and wires of all kinds were strung from pole to pole, and building to building, a tangled mess, making even looking up at the sky unattractive. Around the trees was asphalt and concrete and that stretched out across six lanes, along which racket making and black smoke spewing vehicles traveled. There were not even jeepneys on this road, which at least would have added splashes of colour and trashy pictures to the narrow panorama of asphalt and cement and cables and grey, square buildings. The building was an embassy in Manila so it was fronted with a high iron fence of slats. It had a narrow and guarded gate as an entrance. A few trees jutted above the fence. It seemed a low building, square and flat and unattractive like the street. The hotel across the street and along a few buildings was also very plain, although the large glass panes that ran along the front marked it off from the cement and brick of the other buildings. Inside it was also plain, although with carpeted swirling stairs up to the first floor. The first floor was mainly function rooms, carpeted with just a few cream coloured upholstered sofa chairs in the corners. There were no functions on so the area was quiet. And here also the wall facing out onto to the street was made of glass. Read more…

It is Friday night, 7.30pm, on Orchard Road in Singapore. The crowds are out. The wide pathways as well as the underground labyrinths linking the malls from Ngee Ann City to the new boringly glitzy, pseudo glamorous Ion are busy with people. Office workers are window shopping and looking for something to eat – the food courts are crazily busy. Young women in fashionably sexy clothes right out of the glamorous window displays of the franchised fashion shops make their way around on the arm of their escort. Others, more tired as well as more casually dressed, buy some fried snacks at one of the stalls. Some just sit and rest on the concrete benches on the foot path.

Xmas at Orchard 2008

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