East Timor vote results show Fretilin winning largest share

East Timorese workers show a empty ballot box as they count votes during the parliamentary election in Dili, East Timor, on Saturday. (EPA photo)

DILI, East Timor -- Preliminary results from East Timor's parliamentary election show the largest party in the national unity government has lost support and the leftist Fretilin emerging as the biggest beneficiary - but neither winning enough votes to govern alone.

With 78% of votes counted by midday Sunday, the National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction party of independence hero Xanana Gusmao, or CNRT, had won 27.6%, down from 36.7% in 2012.

Its coalition partner Fretilin, or Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, was up slightly at 31%. The Popular Liberation Party, a new political force led by former President Taur Matan Ruak, had scooped up about 9% of votes. The Democratic Party was winning 10%.

The vote Saturday was East Timor's first parliamentary election without UN supervision since peacekeepers left in 2012.

The former Portuguese colony voted overwhelmingly for independence in 1999 after 24 years of brutal Indonesian occupation. Indonesia's military and pro-Indonesian militias responded to the independence referendum with scorched earth attacks that devastated the East Timorese half of the island of Timor.

In recent years, leaders have focused on big-ticket infrastructure projects to develop the economy, funding them from a dwindling fund of former oil riches, but progress is slow. Today, the country of 1.3 million people still faces poverty with many people lacking clean water and sanitation. Unemployment is high and young people are increasingly going overseas for work.

Nearly two dozen parties contested the election in which they must win more than 4% of the vote to get seats in parliament.

The drop in support for CNRT indicates frustration with slow economic progress and concerns about government corruption.

In the first few years after independence, Fretilin, whose paramilitary arm had waged guerrilla warfare against Indonesia's occupation, was popular enough to form a government alone.