Why Has East Timor Built the Strongest Democracy in Southeast Asia?

Supporters of the FRETILIN political party take part in a rally ahead of parliamentary elections in Tasi Tolu, Dili, in East Timor, on May 9, 2018.

PHOTO: Lirio Da Fonseca/Reuters

“On the face of it, East Timor would not seem like the most natural place to have built a democracy ranked by Freedom House, in its 2021 edition of Freedom in the World, as ‘Free.’ In fact, this ranking makes East Timor the only country in Southeast Asia, where democracy has been regressing for over a decade, to be ranked ‘Free’ by Freedom House. (I serve as a consultant for some Freedom House reports, but not for the report on East Timor.)

“A wide range of other data and anecdotes suggests how far East Timor has come toward democracy. It has built a solidly free state some two decades after Timor was leveled in the conflict that erupted, in 1999, after over 78 percent of Timorese voted to separate from Indonesia after the end of the Suharto dictatorship.”

Read more about Timor’s democratic efforts in Joshua Kurlantzick’s blog post for the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).