Former guerrilla leader and ex-army chief Taur Matan Ruak is to be sworn in as East Timor's new president Saturday as the young democracy, devastated by decades of conflict, celebrates 10 years of independence.
Ruak takes over from Jose Ramos-Horta, a Nobel laureate whose international stature injected prominence to the largely ceremonial role, ahead of independence day celebrations on Sunday.
Police tightened security in the streets of the capital Dili ahead of the ceremonies, where invited guests include Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Australia's governor-general and Portugal's president.
Last-minute preparations included workers cleaning the road to the airport and weeding streetside flowerbeds as children sold flags to passing cars. Some children were seen waving Portuguese flags -- a reminder of the nation's colonial past.
This is a crucial year for the country of 1.1 million also known as Timor-Leste. It will choose a new prime minister and government in general elections on July 7, then at year's end will bid goodbye to UN forces stationed since 1999.
Ruak is due to take over from Ramos-Horta at 11:30 pm (1430 GMT) Saturday, with independence day celebrations kicking off next morning at 8:00 am.
Ruak, 55, won a run-off election last month that was widely lauded as peaceful and fair.
He takes over a country that is hobbled by extreme poverty, corruption and an over-reliance on energy revenues.
But the unstable nation has now enjoyed several years of peace.
"I would sum up the challenges and two priorities of our country as security and the well-being and prosperity of our people," Ruak told AFP.
"This is what people voted for and yearn for as demonstrated in the elections."
The UN has said that peacekeepers, stationed since 1999, will pull out as planned by year's end if the general elections are also peaceful.
The former Portuguese colony voted for independence in a UN-supervised referendum in 1999, after Indonesia's 24-year occupation had left up to 183,000 people dead from fighting, disease and starvation.
The Indonesian military and anti-independence militias went on a savage campaign of retribution after the vote, ravaging the new nation's infrastructure and killing more than 1,000 people.
"It's good that Yudhoyono is coming," said Ina Varella Bradidge, a 35-year-old humanitarian worker in Dili. "It will make him remember who won the war."
The UN administered East Timor until May 20, 2002, when sovereignty was formally handed to its first president.
Since then the nation has suffered bouts of violence -- a political crisis in 2006 killed 37 people and displaced tens of thousands, and Ramos-Horta was lucky to survive an assassination attempt in 2008.
There has been no major political unrest since then, and government spending has increased dramatically in line with East Timor's increased energy income.
Still, the grinding poverty is visible everywhere.
In Dili, away from the venues for the weekend celebrations, mud canals flood slum neighbourhoods after rains, barely clothed children play in the streets, and infrastructure is limited to a few paved roads, a single port and a tiny airport.
The International Monetary Fund calls East Timor the "most oil-dependent economy in the world" after the discovery of large fields of oil and natural gas at sea.
Petroleum products account for more than 90 percent of total government revenue. A special fund, geared for development spending now and to cushion the next generation, recently swelled to $10 billion.
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