Timor-Leste Scraps LIfetime Pensions for Lawmakers After Mass Protests

September 26, 2025 | 11:10 pm

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Lawmakers in Timor-Leste have voted to end the law that provides lifelong pensions for parliament members, following student-led protests against lavish facilities for public officials in one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia.

Former parliament members and some public officials were entitled to lifelong pensions equivalent to their salaries under a 2006 law.

However, on Friday, September 26, 2025, as reported by Al Jazeera, 62 parliament members unanimously passed a law to abolish their lifelong pension, as well as those for former presidents, prime ministers, and cabinet ministers.

"To all university students, your demands have been fulfilled. Please stop the demonstrations," said Olinda Guterres, a parliament member from the Khunto party, after the vote.

The law will now be sent to President of Timor-Leste Jose Ramos-Horta—a freedom hero and Nobel Peace Prize winner—to be signed before it takes effect.

Protests erupted in the capital of Timor-Leste, Dili, after a budget allocation approved last year allocated US$4.2 million to purchase Toyota Prado SUVs for each of the 65 Timor-Leste parliament members, at a cost of US$61,500 per vehicle.

The plan sparked widespread anger in a country where over 40 percent of its population lives in poverty, according to World Bank statistics.

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets on September 15, demanding lawmakers vote to cancel the plan.

The demands of the demonstrators later expanded to issues such as the abolition of lifelong pensions for public officials.

Three days of tense protests—marked by clashes between demonstrators and police and later met with tear gas—ended when parliament members agreed to cancel the car purchase program and abolish their lifelong pensions if the students ended their demonstrations.

The parliament members fulfilled their promise on Friday, with 23-year-old student Fortunata Alves saying the outcome showed that "our fights are not futile."

Timor-Leste only gained its independence in 2002 after spending over 270 years as a Portuguese colony and then almost 25 years under full-scale violent occupation by Indonesia.

Indonesia also witnessed its own mass protests last month, triggered by high living costs and dissatisfaction with the government's economic policies.

Protests that erupted in neighboring Indonesia quickly turned into large-scale violence following reports that politicians received housing allowances of US$3,000, far above the average citizens' salaries.

Tens of thousands of people also took to the streets in the Philippines' capital, Manila, on Sunday, protesting corruption scandals related to a flood control project that cost taxpayers up to 118.5 billion pesos between 2023 and 2025.

Editor’s Choice: Timor-Leste Cancels Parliament's $4.2 Million SUV Plan After Public Pressure

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