NDI Staff: Biographies
Telibert Laoc
Telibert Laoc is NDI’s resident director in East Timor. Before moving to Dili in 2006, Telibert was based in Kabul as a resident senior program manager, where he assisted Afghan efforts to monitor the 2004 presidential and 2005 parliamentary polls. Through this program, NDI helped members of the newly created Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan successfully observe their country’s first democratic polls after more than two decades of war.
For seven years before joining the Institute in 2004, Telibert served as the executive director of the National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), a nonpartisan volunteer organization that has successfully monitored Philippine elections since the Movement's creation in 1983. NAMFREL is an internationally recognized model for those in other countries seeking to initiate peaceful democratic transitions by organizing citizens to ensure a clean, honest, peaceful and credible election process. Telibert was associated with NAMFREL for more than 17 years including a decade of volunteer activities. He has observed elections in the West Bank (2005), Indonesia (1999), Cambodia (1998), South Africa (1994), Mozambique (1994), and Sri Lanka (1994).
Telibert first worked with NDI as resource person in 1994, lending his expertise to the creation of a local election monitoring organization in Bangladesh. For the next decade, he continued to serve in that capacity for a number of Institute programs in Asia.