Otago congratulates alumnus on Timor-Leste PM appointment

Wednesday 11 February 2015

Otago congratulates alumnus on Timor-Leste PM appointment

The University of Otago is extending its formal congratulations to the soon-to-be appointed Prime Minister of Timor-Leste, Mr Rui Araújo, who is a graduate of its Diploma and Master of Public Health programmes.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Harlene Hayne warmly congratulated Dr Araújo, a former Health Minister, who is expected to be sworn in this week as Timor Leste’s fifth prime minister since it gained independence from Indonesia in 2002.

“Mr Araújo’s teachers and mentors at Otago remember him as a talented student and very fine individual. I hope the University community will join with me in celebrating his elevation to the leadership of his country.”

He is the second Otago Postgraduate Diploma of Public Health graduate to become Prime Minister of a country, with the first being Dr Timoci Bavadra who was elected in 1987 to that position in Fiji.

“Otago has a strong history of supporting international research students, especially in areas such as public health,” Professor Hayne says.

Mr Araújo initially graduated in medicine from Bali’s Udayana State University in 1994 and worked several years as a resident surgeon at Dili hospital. In 1998 he took up a New Zealand Official Development Aid scholarship to pursue a Diploma in Public Health through Otago’s Department of Preventive and Social Medicine.

He went on to complete a Masters of Public Health supervised by Professors Robin Gauld and George Salmond , based on field work in East Timor and graduated in December 2001. The findings of his thesis, “A Suitable Medium-to-Long Term National Health System for East Timor: an East Timorese Perspective”, were pivotal in designing the new country’s national health system.

Mr Araújo was appointed as an independent in Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri’s first transitional government after the Fretilin Party’s 2001 victory and continued in the second, which was sworn in the day after the country’s independence was formalised in 2002. He was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Health from June 2006 to August 2007.

Following his time in cabinet he has worked as a health policy advisor and corporate policy advisor at the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Finance, respectively.

He succeeds Xanana Gusmao, who proposed him as the new head of a national unity government.

ENDS

© Scoop Media