East Timor, a tiny half-island state formally known as Timor-Leste, holds the second round of its presidential election April 16. The run-off for the largely ceremonial post of president pits the heavily favored former armed forces chief José Maria Vasconcelos—known as Taur Matan Ruak—against the first round winner Francisco Guterres. Both contenders are heroes of the nation’s long, bloody war against Indonesian occupation, which ended in the country’s formal independence in 2002. So too is the outgoing President José Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Prize laureate; he lost his attempt to win a second term of office in the first round of the election March 17. The incumbent came in third with just 18% of the vote after alienating himself from his party’s political machinery during his tenure in power from 2007.
