Jose Ramos-Horta has been named as East Timor's new prime minister, President Xanana Gusmao told a press briefing on Saturday, ending weeks of political uncertainty in the nation.
DILI: Jose Ramos-Horta has been named as East Timor's new prime minister, President Xanana Gusmao told a press briefing on Saturday, ending weeks of political uncertainty in the nation.
"We have agreed to declare as prime minister Jose Ramos-Horta, first deputy prime minister Estanislau da Silva and second deputy prime minister Rui Araujo," Gusmao said.
Da Silva is currently agriculture minister while Araujo is health minister. "I believe they are going to meet either today (Saturday), tomorrow or the day after and we will announce when the swearing-in of this new government will take place," Gusmao said.
"The programmes of this new government will focus on solving this crisis so that the people can return home."
The premier's position was left empty last month when Mari Alkatiri resigned, bowing to pressure to take responsibility for violence which saw at least 21 people die and 150,000 flee their homes for makeshift refugee camps.
Naming a premier acceptable both to the ruling Fretilin party and Gusmao, who has been highly critical of its leaders, has been crucial for Asia's poorest nation to begin forging a peaceful future since the unrest in May.
Gusmao made the announcement after meeting with the leaders of the ruling Fretilin party, who handed him a shortlist of candidates for the position on Friday.
Ramos-Horta, a Nobel peace prize winner and foreign and defence minister in Alkatiri's government, is not a member of the decades-old party but he helped found it.
He has been widely seen as a potentially unifying candidate for the young nation, which became independent in 2002.
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