Reporter Ana Ribeiro (citizen journalist)
For many year election in Timor-Leste is not so friendly for citizens with disability. Often people with disability cannot easily access to the voting stations, voting cabbing not accessible, and they cannot vote secretly.
Citizens with disability and their organizations echoed their concerns publicly and the Director of STAE (Electoral Administration), Acelino Manuel Branco keep on saying that Timor-Leste’s election is always inclusive and always provide equal opportunity to all citizens, including people with disability.
“We are not differentiating citizens based on their physical or mental conditions and we are not comparing one from the other. For us election is for everyone”, said Acelino.
He also added that all citizens are encouraged to participate in civic education, electoral education, and we are making our efforts to reach all of them so that they can exercise their vote in the election.
In regards to people with disability Acelino extended his explanation by saying that people with various type of disability, like hearing impairment, visually impaired, physical disability, they all have the opportunity to organize their electoral ID card so that they can vote in the election.
“Our election law provided way for citizens to choose someone whom he or she trusted to help the one with disability to vote for a political party. However up to now we don’t have data base about total number of people with disability including types of their disability ”, added Acelino.
He is also saying that STAE is making efforts to respond to the concerns that raised by people with disability and their organizations.
But People With Disability Association (ADTL ) already following the issues and advocate for the participation of people with disability for many years and noted that there is not much participation.
“In the election law, particularly in the recent presidential election people with psychosocial issue are not allowed to vote. This is differs to the general election where people whom recovered from psychosocial illness are allowed to vote. But that should not be the case for people with psychosocial illness if they get support from others, like family members, they still can vote”, said Cesario.
Cesario also explains that when there is no accesible conditions in the voting stations that is a form of discrimination. People may also think why do people with disability need to participate in the election because they have the same rights like others.
“As association we have our own difficulty to know how many people with disability actually vote. We know that according to the census we have 38.000 people with disability but we dont know how many actually vote. Voter education is essential so that other people can undertand the rights of people with disabilty,” expressed Cesario.
Cesario also mentioned that the Association coordinated with Ministry of Justice, Ministry of State Administration and STAE to facilitate the electoral ID cards to all eligible voters but this has not been easy since the process of getting electoral cards are not that friendly with people with disability.
NGO Forum Timor-Leste noted that the election preparation does not consider the participation of people with disability.
“We observed in the presidential election, it was a successful one, but the challenge continue exist because people with disability still cannot access easily to the voting stations and cast their vote secretly”, said the Executive Director of NGO Forum, Valentino da Costa.
NGO Forum noted that in the last election 23% electorate are not participate in the election and these people including those with disability issues. The Forum recommended to the government to prepare voting stations and voting paper to facilitate people with disability to vote for the political party that they prefers.
According to the data from the National Census conducted recently total population of Timor-Leste is now over 1.3 million and over 3% of them are people with disability. This 3% are mostly resided in Baucau, Viqueque, Ermera, and Dili.
Total number of people with visual impairment is nearly 15 thousand, with communication difficulty is close to 13 thousand, physical disability is over 7 thousands people and people with psychosocial disability is over 3 thousand people.
