Democracy in the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste∗

Abstract

Various naturally occurring neolithic pieces of evidence in the Tutuala caves date back almost 50,000 years and provide strong evidence of an early hunter-gatherer society of small kingdoms with shared clannish marital arrangements and land use. Javanese and some Chinese traders around the 13th century profited from the export and sale of sandalwood, bee honey, honeycombs, and beeswax. Almost 300 years would pass before the arrival of the Portuguese in the 16th and 17th centuries after the sacking and destruction of Muslimheld Malacca. It was the Portuguese conquerors who introduced coffee plantations, cane sugar, and cotton plantations. While the Catholic missionaries from the Portuguese colonies of Goa in India helped spread that faith, most of the primary socio-economic and political activities tended to be littoral by design. In spite of attempts to convert the locals to Catholicism, many of the animistic practices of the Timorese were preserved and remain unchanged till 2023. Compared to Goa and other Indian ports, the early medieval towns and ports of Timor were backward and pre-modern in nature. The intention of this paper is to consider the fact that in the absence of democratic roots in Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, this paper nevertheless highlights the main obstacles for democratic growth in Timor in late modernity by using a seven-question democratic framework.