Fidelis Leite Magalhães

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Fidelis Leite Magalhães (2019)

Fidelis Manuel Leite Magalhães (born June 9, 1980 in Maliana , East Timor ) is an East Timorese politician. From 2012 to 2015 he was the chief of staff of the East Timorese President Taur Matan Ruak . Until 2017, Magalhães was Senior Political Advisor to the President. He has been a minister since 2018. Magalhães is a member of the Partidu Libertasaun Popular (PLP).

Career

Magalhães grew up in Maliana, the capital of the Bobonaro municipality in the west of the country. He is the second child of Manuel Magalhães and Regina Cardoso Gouveia Leita, who have three other sons and five daughters. Manuel Magalhães was killed in the crisis in East Timor in 1999 . One of Fidelis's brothers is PD politician Nívio Leite Magalhães , who has been State Secretary for Youth and Labor since 2017.

Fidelis Magalhães actively joined the resistance against the Indonesian occupation at an early stage . At the age of 13 he became a member of the Sagrada Família , a resistance movement that also has religious traits. Magalhães was also a member of a youth gang, the Tuba Corente ( German  fixed chains ). During this time he was looking for his own information, for his identity. A process that could well be "aggressive and even violent".

Due to the wave of violence after the independence referendum in East Timor in 1999 , the family from Maliana had to flee to Dili after the father Manuel Magalhães was arrested and the house was destroyed. The father was later murdered. After the Indonesians left in the same year, Magalhães left school and started working as a driver for the Jesuit Refugee Services to support his family. He was able to become a civil servant through grants. At the end of 2000 Magalhães became an officer with responsibility for “Human Rights, Refugees and Return”. In early 2001, he represented East Timor’s civil society at a United Nations human rights conference in Geneva . It was his first trip abroad, the impressions of which he described as “ surreal ”, especially since he had only started to teach himself English a year earlier . From mid-2001 to 2002 Magalhães was employed by various peacekeeping and reconciliation organizations in the country, including a brief period at the UNHCR as spokesman and assistant for external relations. At the same time he was President of the Maliana Youth Committee , in which the youth organizations Bobonaros were represented.

Fidelis Leite Magalhães (2017) during an election campaign appearance in Lolotoe

In late 2002, Magalhães received a grant from the United States Department of State to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa through the East-West Center . There he studied political science and literature as a minor. His focus was on political, social and literary theories. Magalhães became a member of the political faculty and graduated with honors. He was also one of the best graduates in Latin American and Iberian literature. Again with a scholarship, he then went to the University of Massachusetts Amherst , but returned to Hawaii because the scholarship was not enough for life on the US mainland. He has been the spokesman for the PLP since June.

From 2006 Magalhães worked in various functions. Back in his home country in 2007 he worked for the German Society for Technical Cooperation in East Timor as a Participation Expert on the national dialogue. Then in the same year he was appointed head of the Post-Transitional Dialogue , which was funded by Norway . Magalhães has served as a team leader on various initiatives and has become the leading advisor on policy and development issues. In 2008 he founded the High Level National Consensus Dialogue with Gunnar Stålsett , Norway's special envoy for East Timor .

A few months later Magalhães received a British Chevening Scholarship to study political economy at the London School of Economics . After graduating there, he received a Gulbenkian Research Fellowship in International Political Economy in Lisbon . There he also took courses on international relations at the Secondary School for Social and Political Sciences (ISCSP-UTL).

In October 2011, Magalhães returned to East Timor and joined Taur Matan Ruak's campaign team in the 2012 East Timor presidential election . In the team he was initially vice-head for sociopolitical research and communication and was later appointed official spokesman for Taur Matan Ruak. After the successful election of Taur Matan Ruak, Magalhães was appointed as his representative, who should ensure a successful handover. On May 20, 2012, on the day Taur Matan Ruak was sworn in, Magalhães became his chief of staff. He was one of the youngest people in East Timor to hold a ministerial office.

Fidelis Leite Magalhães (2019)

In June 2015, Magalhães resigned as chief of staff to return to the United States to study at Harvard Kennedy School . He was succeeded by Rui Augusto Gomes , the previous presidential advisor on economic issues. At the end of the year he became one of the co-founders of the Partidu Libertasaun Popular, which is considered to be related to Taur Matan Ruak. Magalhães became the President's Senior Political Advisor upon graduation and remained so until the end of the President's term on May 20, 2017.

On May 20, 2017, Magalhães was elected one of six deputies to party leader Taur Matan Ruak. In the parliamentary elections in East Timor in 2017 , Magalhães took second place on the list of the PLP and thus moved into the national parliament as a member . In Parliament, Magalhães was the group leader of the PLP and chairman of the Commission on Foreign Affairs, Defense and National Security (Commission B).

In the early elections in 2018 , Magalhães was in 7th place in the Aliança para Mudança e Progresso (AMP), to which the PLP also belongs, and came back to parliament. At AMP, Magalhães is the Alliance's vice president.

On June 22, 2018, Magalhães was sworn in as Minister for Legislative Reform and Parliamentary Affairs, which is why he automatically had to give up his seat. Later he also took on the responsibility of the economic department. On May 25, 2020, Magalhães was dismissed from his ministerial office as part of the reshuffle of the Eighth Government , to be sworn in on May 29 in his new role as Minister of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers.

Publications (selection)

Magalhães (2020)
  • Fidelis Leite Magalhães: Massacre in East Timor: Liquiça 12 years later , in: SUARA - Magazine for Indonesia and East Timor, No. 1/2011, pp. 9-10

Web links

Commons : Fidelis Leite Magalhães  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ East Timor’s National Parliament: Fidélis Manuel Leite Magalhães , accessed on May 5, 2020.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Josh Trinidade: Short Bio: Fidelis Magalhaes, Chefe Casa Civil (Chief of Staff) - Office of the President, RDTL , May 30, 2012 , accessed January 21, 2017.
  3. ↑ TIMOR HAU NIAN DOBEN: KRIME ORGANIZADO - Fidelis Magalhães, and this is his personal opinion , October 8, 2013 , accessed on January 21, 2017.
  4. ↑ Australian Foreign Ministry: Nivio's Story , June 2002 , accessed October 19, 2017.
  5. ↑ Tempo Semanal: PR Nomeia Rui Gomes Ba Xefe Kaza Sivil Hodi Troka Fidelis , August 5, 2015 ( memento of January 21, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on January 21, 2017.
  6. ↑ Harvard Kennedy School: After HKS, Student Plans Return to Political Life in East Timor , April 7, 2016 , accessed January 21, 2017.
  7. ↑ PLP: Estrutura , accessed June 19, 2017.
  8. ↑ La'o Hamutuk 2017 Timor-Leste Parliamentary Election - List of Parliamentary slates from all parties , accessed July 14, 2017.
  9. ↑ La'o Hamutuk: Who will be in Timor-Leste's next Parliament? / Se sei tuir iha Parlamentu Nasionál? , July 23, 2017 , accessed July 24, 2017.
  10. ↑ Guilhermina Franco: Diferensa Ideias, PN Suspende Votasaun Projetu Delibresaun Liberasaun No 5 / Iv , Suara Timor Lorosae, September 19, 2017 , accessed on September 19, 2017.
  11. ↑ National Parliament of East Timor: Comissões Especializadas Permanentes, Competencia e Composição 2017–2022 ( Memento of October 4, 2017 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on October 4, 2017.
  12. ^ Election lists for the 2018 parliamentary elections
  13. ↑ SIC Notícias: Órgãos eleitorais de Timor-Leste acusam oposição de publicações falsas em época de eleições , May 10, 2018 , accessed on May 11, 2018.
  14. ↑ SAPO: Primeiro grupo de membros do VIII Governo timorense tomou posse em Díli , June 22, 2018 , accessed on June 23, 2018.
  15. ↑ Lusa: Presidente timorense promulga nova orgânica do Governo que exonera dois ministros , May 25, 2020 , accessed on May 25, 2020.
  16. ↑ Lusa: Presidente timorense dá posse a oito novos membros do Governo , May 29, 2020 , accessed on May 29, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Magalhães, Fidelis Leite
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Magalhães, Fidelis Manuel Leite (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION East Timorese politician and Chief of Staff to the East Timorese President
DATE OF BIRTH June 9, 1980
PLACE OF BIRTH Maliana , East Timor