Do we like them?

Do we like Xanana Gusmão?

Our score: 7 out of 10. A long record serving his country, held back by one COVID-era outburst and a thin record on LGBTQ+ issues.

Xanana Gusmão is the face of Timor-Leste's long road to independence. He rose to lead the resistance against Indonesian rule, became the country's first president, and has twice been prime minister. He was sworn in again in 2023, so he is still running the show.

His biggest win at the negotiating table came in March 2018. As Timor-Leste's chief negotiator, he helped finalise a maritime boundary treaty with Australia, signed at the UN in New York. For a tiny country that had been out-muscled over its seabed oil and gas for years, that was a big deal.

The bad day was April 2021. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that he rallied hundreds of people outside a Dili isolation centre to demand the body of a man who had died after testing positive for COVID-19. He rejected the cause of death, argued with the health minister, and was filmed slapping two mourners. He also said “if you feel sick do not go the hospital”, which is shaky advice in the middle of a pandemic.

On the harm check, the record is thin rather than clean. I found nothing from him campaigning against LGBTQ+ people, women or migrants, and nothing on the climate either way. His Greater Sunrise push, wanting the gas piped to Timor-Leste, is about sovereignty and money, not denial. The 2021 COVID episode is the one clear public-health mark, and it was a single day, not a years-long slide.

Nothing new I could pin down lately. In September 2025 student-led protests broke out in Dili over a plan to buy cars for MPs, and parliament cancelled the purchase. He was reported to be overseas at the time. He later said protests were fine so long as property wasn't destroyed.

In his favour, he has worked to patch things up with Indonesia, the country that once hunted him. In October 2024 he was in Jakarta talking with President Prabowo Subianto about speeding up land boundary talks. That is the work of a leader trying to settle things at the table rather than relitigate old fights.