This year’s local council elections will not be the only election taking place in Northern Ireland this weekend.
On Sunday, May 21, parliamentary elections are set to take place in the South East Asian nation of East Timor.
With a strong community of East Timorese people living in the Co Tyrone town of Dungannon, a polling station will be set up in the town centre for the thousands of people eligible to vote in the elections.
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Alongside the polling day on Sunday, a celebration of East Timor’s culture, food and music will take place across the town the community now calls home. The festival’s name ‘What’s the Croc’ combines the ancient symbol of the crocodile in East Timor with Irish slang for a good time.
Over 2,500 East Timor nationals are expected to cast their vote at the designated polling station on the Hill of the O’Neill on Sunday.
“This is our third time casting our vote in Dungannon, there is a lot of the East Timorese community living here and in other parts of the UK,” says festival chairman Francisco Mok.
“All of the East Timorese people who lived in Northern Ireland will be coming to Dungannon that day to cast their votes.
“For me personally I feel so emotional that I am able to cast my vote and give my one and only vote I will contribute to the development of peace and stability in my own country.”
A Portuguese colony until 1975, East Timor was then occupied by Indonesia during a period of intense conflict which led to hundreds of thousands of lost lives and many fleeing the country.,
Francisco says the sense of community in the Dungannon area for the East Timorese is very strong.
“We come here not only looking for a better job and a better life and different perspectives on life, but we also want to contribute to the development of our country,” he says.
“We come here to learn and to adapt, and to see what we can do for our own country in the future if we return.
“Our culture is very much a collective culture, we all come together for celebrations if there is a birthday party or a wedding.
“It’s a very close knit community and I think that is because of the culture we have grown up with.”
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