UNMIT Press Conference - 31st October 2006

Transcript of Press Conference with Acting SRSG Finn Reske-Nielsen and the Electoral Certification Team members: Reginald Austin (Zimbabwe), Lucinda Almeida (Portugal), and Michael Maley (Australia).

Venue: UNMIT Conference Room, Dili, Timor-Leste
Topic: Electoral Certification Team

Adrian Edwards:
Good afternoon everyone. A very warm welcome to this press conference – marking an important early event in the election period. Introductory remarks will be by Mr. Finn Reske-Nielsen as the Acting Head of UNMIT and then we will hand over to the Election Certification Team.

Finn Reske Nielsen:
Good afternoon everybody and thank you for attending yet another press conference at Obrigado Barracks. As I have said repeatedly political differences need to be sorted out at the ballot box; political differences are not sorted out through street violence, and that is why the elections in 2007 are so important. You are all aware that the mandate of the new UN mission includes the provision of significant support to the presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for the first half of next year. Essentially this support has two main components. First, the Mission will provide electoral staff, approximately 460, who will provide technical, logistical support to the government and will also provide policy advice. And secondly, this support will be supplemented by technical support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The second component of the mandate of the Mission is to provide for the certification of the different phases of the electoral process; and in this regards, the United Nations Secretary General has appointed an independent Electoral Certification Team, and the role of that team is to certify that every element of the electoral process is being conducted in accordance with international standards. So this is what the United Nations will do, but the primary responsibility for organising and conducting the elections rests with the authorities of this country.

And with those few introductory remarks, it is my pleasure to introduce the three members of the team, Mr. Reginald Austin who is the spokesperson, I believe, for the team, Mr. Michael Maley and Ms. Lucinda Almeida.

Reginald Austin:
Thank you very much Acting Special Representative, and good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I must apologise for my linguistic limitations as I do not have Portuguese or Tetum and I am very pleased that you have been prepared to join us on this occasion to hear as to why we are here and a brief introduction to what we are doing.

It is a great honour for all of us to have been invited by the Secretary-General, acting on the invitation of the government of Timor-Leste, to participate in this important process. This is in many ways a novel development of international community assistance to electoral aspects of transitional processes. That it is designed along with the support which has been mentioned to ensure and help to guarantee, as far as is possible, the credibility of the election process and thus the legitimacy and the stability of the government which will be elected.

As has been mentioned, this is a very important election next year in the consolidated process of the building of democracy and stability in Timor-Leste. And we are very conscious, I think, of the enormous steps which the people and government of this country have made after the long struggle that you had against various forms of occupation. Thus, it is important that we are aware of our presence here at the invitation of a sovereign government and with the authority of the Security Council’s resolution responding to that invitation. We are, as has been mentioned, an independent certification team; we are independent of all authorities and we are here in that sense in our personal expert capacity.

The certification concept is new. It is not observation, in the sense that it has been understood in many cases in quite a number of countries over the past twelve years. Our task will be essentially to hold up, as it were, a mirror to the efforts of the authorities - both national and international - to ensure that this will be a credible and effective election. And that must be done by us, in reference to standards which are very clear. They include the Constitution of this country; a very well established set of international standards that have been developed over the past twenty years, in particular, in a quasi-judicial manner in assessing a situation and certifying the process, and the value of the process as it goes on. And the purpose of this assessment and certification is essentially to assist the citizens of the country, the political parties, the electoral authorities, and the United Nations in its task of supporting those authorities to understand and to adjust, when necessary, to make the whole process absolutely effective and credible and ultimately therefore produce a stable and widely accepted government.

The Special Representative has underlined the fact that the ultimate and essential responsibility for this process lies with the authorities of Timor-Leste. But we would want to add to that, in the light of our experience and my colleagues and I have been in a number of different places facing this process, that the real responsibility is much broader than that. But it is essentially a national responsibility. It is a responsibility of the citizens; it is a responsibility of all the political parties and the civil society to be aware of the importance of this process, of the standards by which it must be conducted, and to conduct themselves in accordance with those standards, both national and international. So as an example of that situation, we are now in the important stage, the vital stage in which the foundations, the framework of this process must be laid down. That is in the law which will govern the election. It is vital that that and the other steps that have to be taken are taken and that everyone, every responsibility is met in a timely fashion and preferably in a fashion which reflects a real consensus between the actors in this important process.

Those are desiderata which apply in every electoral process and which are reinforced in this case by the Security Council resolution itself. Immediately our task, on this, our first meeting together will be to clarify for ourselves and for the information of those we will be serving - the actual terms of reference, the concept of certification, which as I have mentioned is new, so that everyone and every participant knows exactly where they are will stand in this process. We are engaged in the process now and we will complete it before we leave.

We will return on several occasions when it is appropriate to make the assessment and the certifications necessary. In the meanwhile, we will have a small team, which is being very fortunately provided by the United Nations, who will work to our instructions; and at the end of each of these visits we will make a report to the Secretary-General, to the Special Representative and to the public.

As you have seen from the press statement which has been handed out, my two colleagues are people of long experience. They both happily have had particular experience with this country; in the case of Lucinda visiting parliaments and working here for a while. And in the case of Michael Maley, I think he has been here so often he hardly knows whether he is Australian or East Timorese – and he is very committed to this country, I know. I am less fortunate – this is my first visit, but I look forward with my colleagues to the remaining time and work that we will spend here.

Thank you very much.

Question and Answers

Question:
Mr. Reske-Nielsen just told us that the primary responsibility lies with the Timorese authorities. My question is if the Timorese authorities ask to postpone the elections, how will this commission advise the authorities? Thank you.

Answer:
Reske-Nielsen:
Thank you for that question. Perhaps my colleagues will answer that, but I am happy to say that as we all know in terms of the constitution of this country, elections will have to be held in 2007 because the previous elections were held five years previously and therefore this should go ahead. And I would say that at this point in time, I see no reason why they should not proceed as scheduled. But perhaps Reginald you want to add something to this?

Reginald Austin:
I think it is useful to clarify again, that our task is to assess situations by reference to international standards and national constitutional law and make our finding clear on that. We are not here as advisers to the government or, for that matter, to anyone else. We hope that what we may have to say by way of assessment may be helpful but it is not for us to give advice – what you respond to as advice in that sense.

Question:
Karen from Australia Associated Press.
The International Crisis Group has warned the elections may be another flashpoint with violence. Just wondering if that is something that your team agrees with and what you see your role is in mitigating that risk?

Answer:
Reginald Austin:
In a way all elections are potential sources of conflict. They bring a great deal of tension together. Once again, our task is clearly to take note of security; security is part of the essential context within which an election can be held, credibly or perhaps without credibility. But we will have to judge that in the circumstances that we see, rather than by reference to any particular judgement or an outside body.

Reske-Nielsen:
I can just add to that, if I may. That clearly security is a critical part of what the UN Mission is doing and will be doing in the coming months. With specific reference to the elections, we have been building up our police capacity over the past several weeks; we have now reached a level of more than 900 police officers in Dili, but that will increase even further over the next few months and we will, as of next month, begin to deploy UN police to the districts outside of Dili. And next year, as we move closer to the elections, we will have a significant further increase in the number of UN police across the country precisely with a view to ensuring that we have sufficient capacity on the security front. In addition, we will of course continue with our political and good offices work in order to promote national reconciliation and dialogue.

Question:
With the experience that you had in Afghanistan and all the other countries, and the crisis that we are having right now in our country, if you see that the election is not according to international standards, what steps are you going to take?

Answer:
Reginald Austin:
Again, the certification process needs to be understood. We will look at all aspects of the process, including as has been mentioned, the aspect of security, and the other preparations, and we will make judgements on those issues. Again it is not for us to lay down the law. We are here to provide a form of certification, which we hope will be helpful, and we are sure that it will be helpful, but that is the limit of our task and our mandate. There are, however, both national authorities, civil society, the citizens of the country and the United Nations here who will be, as it were, the authorities and the powers – if you like- that will take note of whatever we might have to say and use it in a positive way and a constructive way, we assume.

Question:
With the crisis that we are having right now and like all the electoral process were successful in our country, but now with the crisis in our country, what do you think – successful elections or not?

Answer:
Reginald Austin:
Well at this stage, as I mentioned, we are very much engaged in getting our own task clear. And we have not yet got to the question which you have raised of the present crisis, if you would. That would, however, be something which we will take note of throughout the process – if you are talking about security aspects – and we will in an appropriate way make our assessment and make our judgement, if you like, known through our certification status.

Question:
With your experience, what can contribute to failure in elections?

Answer:
Reginald Austin:
Well, there are a huge number of possibilities. From the very important framework within which the election is to be run, legal framework, through all the processes – if they happen to be seriously defective by reference to the constitution or to international standards, they might well cause the election to lose credibility. And those are issues which the authorities, the political parties, the citizens, the international community, will certainly be concerned to ensure that they do not happen. Our task is to make it clear whether what is happening, as we perceive, are in fact in accordance with the standards that we require to send and reflect and to communicate that to all concerned.

Question:
You mentioned that setting the foundation of the law for the election was very important. Do you think there needs to be a political code of ethics for the election?

Answer:
Reginald Austin:
A code of conduct is a fairly normal procedure, or a normal element, of the electoral administration and of the behaviour by reference to which political parties will act. And in that sense, it would not be unusual if there were such a code of conduct reflecting international practice [inaudible] it would not be unique.
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