Early parliamentary elections were held in

East Timor East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-west ...

on 12 May 2018 after the

National Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

was dissolved by President

Francisco Guterres Francisco Guterres, popularly known as Lú-Olo (born 7 September 1954), is an East Timorese politician who served as president of East Timor from 20 May 2017 to 20 May 2022. He is also the president of the political party Fretilin, and he was ...

on 26 January 2018. The Alliance for Change and Progress (AMP), a coalition of three opposition parties, won an absolute majority of 34 of the 65 seats in Parliament. Voter turnout was 81 percent, five percentage points higher than the previous year.

Background

In the 2017 parliamentary elections there was no clear winner, with the

Fretilin The Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor ( pt, Frente Revolucionária de Timor-Leste Independente, abbreviated as Fretilin) is a centre-left political party in East Timor. They presently hold 23 of 65 seats in the National Parliam ...

party of

Mari Alkatiri Mari bin Amude Alkatiri, GCIH ( ar, مرعي بن عمودة الكثيري '; born 26 November 1949) is a Timorese politician. He was Prime Minister of East Timor from May 2002 until his resignation on 26 June 2006 following weeks of politi ...

holding only one more seat than the

National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction The National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction ( pt, Congresso Nacional de Reconstrução de Timor, CNRT) is a political party in East Timor founded by former President Xanana Gusmão in March 2007 in preparation for the 2007 parliamentary ...

led by

Xanana Gusmão José Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmão (; born 20 June 1946) is an East Timorese politician. A former rebel, he was the third President of the independent East Timor, serving from 2002 to 2007. He then became its fourth prime minister, serving from ...

. Alkatiri formed a minority government with the Democratic Party, which held only 30 of the 65 seats in the

. However, the government's attempts to pass a budget were blocked, and amidst political deadlock, President

dissolved Parliament and called for early elections.East Timor president dissolves Parliament to hold new elections
Straits Times, 26 January 2018

Electoral system

The 65 members of the National Parliament were elected from a single nationwide constituency by closed list

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

. Parties were required to have a woman in at least every third position in their list. Seats were allocated using the

d'Hondt method The D'Hondt method, also called the Jefferson method or the greatest divisors method, is a method for allocating seats in parliaments among federal states, or in party-list proportional representation systems. It belongs to the class of highest ...

with an electoral threshold of four percent.Fourth amendment to the Law on Election of the National Parliament
CNE

Background

Electoral system

Results

By municipality

References

Notes

Further reading

External links