Zacarias da Costa
Zacarias (Zac ) Albano da Costa ( born January 16, 1964 in Remexio / Portuguese Timor ) is a politician from East Timor. Since 2008, he is leader of the Partido Social Democrata PSD (Social Democratic Party). From 2007 to 2012 was Costa deputy in the National Assembly and Foreign Minister of the country.
Costa is married to Milena Pires and has a son with her.
Occupation
By 1975, Costa completed his schooling in the secondary stage in Dar until his family fled to Portugal, where Costa finished his school in the Azores. In the second year of his theological studies, he went to the philosophical faculty of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa at Braga, where he studied humanism. Between 1988 and 1991, Costa was the president of the Associação académica the faculty.
From 1992 to 1993 he was President of the Regional Committee in Lisbon. Costa participated in the restoration of the União Democrática Timorense UDT, East Timor's oldest party, in part. On an extraordinary party congress in December 1993 in Lisbon, this has been successfully completed. Costa was here elected one of the Vice-Chairman ( re-elected 1997). In the UDT, he was responsible for international relations of the party. As a prominent member of the Comissão Coordenadora as Frente Diplomatica CCFD ( Coordinating Commission of the Diplomatic Front) he is one of those of the Timorese resistance abroad, who have traveled the furthest. He represented the interests of East Timor in various forums around the world, as in the United Nations General Assembly, the Committee on decolonization and in Komiteen and Commissions for Human Rights in Geneva. In seminars on decolonization in the Caribbean Costa said in Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Lucia and Antigua and Barbuda. He was also the first East Timorese with a quasi - diplomatic status at the ACP - EU conference.
As a representative of the Timorese resistance to the European Union from 1995 onwards Costa worked for several years in Brussels. He was a member of the Conselho Nacional de Resistência Timorense CNRT, the umbrella organization of the Timorese Resistance.
Political career
After the independence referendum in 1999, in which the East Timorese population opted for independence from Indonesia, Costa returned to East Timor. From May 2000 to June 2001, he was the first Secretary General of the Partido Social Democrata PSD. Today he is still president of the National Council of the PSD. 2002 Compatible Costa as chief executive of the campaign team Xanana Gusmão in his candidacy for president. Costas wife Milena Pires was campaign manager.
Costa is a member of various non-governmental organizations in East Timor, for example, he is vice president of the Red Cross of East Timor, President of the General Assembly of the sports clubs of East Timor, director of the NGO Fini Foun, founder and council member of the Aikido Federation, secretary of the Lions Club of East Timor and member of the Curator Council of Lifau Foundation.
Professionally, Costa was in the following years consultant to the Asian Development Bank in December 2006 and was adviser to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID ) for the private sector. In addition, he leads the largest East Timorese travel agency and travel agency, Timor Megatours.
2007 Zacarias da Costa Foreign Minister of the government under the current Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão. On December 7, 2008 Costa was elected at a party congress in a crucial vote against the former Secretary General Fernando Dias Gusmão as party leader.
Beginning of April 2010 it came to the battle between Costa and Prime Minister Gusmão. Within a week there were three international conferences held in Dili. Costa had ordered the Timorese ambassadors not to come for the conferences to Dili, but Gusmão revised the statement and recalled the ambassador. Then Costa who taught by SMS Gusmão about his resignation. At the conferences Costa was then absent, in contrast to other Cabinet of the country. On April 13, but published the East Timorese Foreign Ministry issued a statement in which Costa and his loyalty to the PSD against Prime Minister Gusmão said. Costa retains the full responsibility over its range, until the Prime Minister would propose to the President for his dismissal, according to the Constitution.
In September 2010, Costa was due to abuse of office and corruption accused by the prosecution and then provisionally suspended by Prime Minister Gusmão and the Parliament of his office. Background was the award of a highly doped diplomatic posts to the wife of Deputy Prime Minister José Luís Guterres. On November 25, the Supreme Court of the State dismissed all charges against Costa.
In the parliamentary elections in East Timor in 2012, the PSD failed significantly at the three- percent threshold. Costa thus retired from parliament and government.