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BFF-20
ETIMOR-POLITICS
East Timor leader says quitting after coalition collapse
DILI, East Timor, Feb 25, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – East Timor’s prime minister said
Tuesday he was quitting after a political coalition that supported him
collapsed, setting up the tiny Southeast Asian nation for another round of
instability.
Taur Matan Ruak — a one-time guerilla fighter in the former Portuguese
colony later annexed by Indonesia — said he had filed a resignation letter
to President Francisco Guterres, citing a “political impasse”.
“I was in a meeting with President (Guterres) and I asked to resign from
the PM position,” Ruak told reporters in the capital Dili, adding that he
would remain in the job until his resignation request was accepted.
Ruak was sworn in as prime minister in June 2018 following a protracted
political crisis that had paralysed the half-island nation of some 1.3
million squeezed between Indonesia and Australia.
That marked East Timor’s second government in less than a year in the
impoverished nation that won independence in 2002 after a brutal 24-year
occupation by neighbouring Indonesia.
Born Jose Maria Vasconcelos but universally known by his nom de guerre
Taur Matan Ruak — which means “two sharp eyes” — Ruak was a commander in
the East Timorese resistance before becoming chief of the newly independent
nation’s army.
He also served in the largely ceremonial role of president between 2012
and 2017.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1151 hrs