Electing community leaders: diversity in uniformity

This article investigates the impact of the election of community leaders in local communities (villages or suku) in Timor-Leste. After looking briefly at the impacts of suku elections on selected communities—particularly on community cohesion—and at some community responses to elections, the article discusses local capacities for managing the challenges to social order and cohesion that can flow from elections, and key sources of those capacities. The study found that applying a uniform mechanism for electing community leaders across all suku has raised significant concerns in some communities, and that the differences that exist between communities can mean that uniform approaches to local elections threaten to undermine already working governance systems. During the field research, communities themselves suggested alternative approaches to managing elections or to the process of identifying community leaders. The article considers how best to respond to this desire for local diversity within a spirit of democracy and suggests an approach of ‘diversity in uniformity’ as a way forward.