After six months of drafting, consultation, and debate, East Timor’s Constituent Assembly today signed into force the territory’s first-ever constitution, a move that was hailed by the top United Nations official in the territory as a “founding act” of a new nation.

Nearly three quarters of East Timorese have deemed education the most important development issue of the soon-to-be independent territory, according to a national planning survey funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and released today in Dili.

East Timor today kicked off the territory’s first-ever presidential election campaign, with the head of the United Nations Transitional Administration (UNTAET) predicting that the process will be as peaceful, and the turn out as large, as the balloting for last year’s Constituent Assembly.

The head of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) today welcomed the end to the presidential campaign deadlock after candidate Francisco Xavier do Amaral and his supporters announced they would ask the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to remove all party symbols from the ballot for the upcoming election.