Announcement

It has been almost a month of speculation, interpretation, and consternation. In Dili we've been reading the reports and the tea leaves, hoping for a glimpse into how the deadlock over which group - FRETILIN with its 21-seat plurality or the CNRT-ASDT-PSD-PD post-election alliance with 37 seats (57% of parliament) - will be chosen by President Ramos-Horta to present a prime minister.

The announcement has been put off repeatedly, but today it actually happened. At around three thirty Jess and I got ready. We hole-punched Jess's old Boston College photo ID and strung it on a blue lanyard so that she could be official. We grabbed a camera and a cab and headed out to Caicoli.

Once everyone was in the room for the announcement, Jess took pictures and I scribbled notes. It was a good speach - delivered clearly and slowly, emphasizing that the constitution gives the president a choice - the most-voted party or the party or alliance with the majority - and that he had chosen the alliance based on viability.

In closing, the President called upon the people to give the new Prime Minister the opportunity to rule, a chance. It was an appropriate inversion: although it had ultimately been Ramos-Horta's decision to pick the PM, it will be the people's choice to let Gusmão begin his work.

Jess and I walked home via Mercado Lama, riding the rush of excitement. As we turned into Audeon it also became clear that we should stay in for the night. Balide, Santa Cruz, Comoro - beep beep, beep beep (another text) - all these neighborhoods were starting to heat up. Restrict movement. Lay low.

But it was a good day, an important day, and I was glad that Jess was here to squeeze in behind the TV cameras with me to see the beginning of the new government, the first line of a new chapter.