DILI, East Timor, Sept 6 (AFP) -Veteran resistance party Fretilin has won 55 of the 88 seats in East Timor's first freely-elected legislature, according to final provisional results announced by the United Nations on Thursday.
The yet-to-be-certified results give Fretilin, the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, a simple majority in the assembly, but short of the two-thirds, or 60 seat majority required to approve decisions.
The 27-year-old party scored 57.3 percent of the overall vote, the UN's chief electoral officer Carlos Valenzuela told a briefing here.
A total of 384,248 voters, or 91.3 percent of those eligible, went to the polls last Thursday to elect an 88-member constituent assembly.
The assembly is made up of 13 district representatives and 75 national representatives, who will draft a constitution for the nearly-independent territory and become the national parliament within 90 days.
Fretilin won 12 of the 13 district seats and 43 national seats.
The party, which formed the core of the resistance movement against Indonesia's brutal 24-year rule between 1975 and 1999, had predicted it would win up to 88 percent of the overall vote.
PHOTO CAPTION:
A U.N. election worker opens a ballot box for vote counting as East Timorese observers look on in Dili Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2001. With half of the votes counted in East Timor's first democratic election, the party Fretilin that led the country to independence will capture the largest slice of seats in the fledgeling nation's legislature, but with a slimmer majority than party leaders had anticipated. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati)
- Sep 04 2:29 AM ET