[3] Former military commander Taur Matan Ruak provisionally beat Francisco Guterres in a second round runoff.

[5] There were finally twelve candidates running for president; two others eventually were excluded, one failing to meet the nomination requirements and another dying at the start of the election.

One candidate Francisco Xavier do Amaral,[7] a member of the National Parliament of East Timor and a leader of Timorese Social Democratic Association, died during the campaign, on 5 March 2012.

[20] According to the AFP, the most likely candidates were José Ramos-Horta, Francisco "Lu Olo" Guterres and Taur Matan Ruak.

[26] International observers were present from Australia, the European Union, Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) and Lusophone states.

[21] On 2 March, the CNE held a meeting, led by its president, Faustino Cardoso Gomes, with an EU delegation based in the country to discuss issues pertaining to the election and its monitoring.

[30] The Deputy Secretary-General of UNMIT, Finn Reske-Nielson, said of the election that "we have seen a clean campaign that's been virtually free of violence.

[32] On 20 February, the offices of the CNE and the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration were firebombed at about 3:00 in the national capital of Dili.

[33] Australia's Sky News also suggested that witnesses had reported seeing serving members of the military campaign for Ruak amid what it said were fears of voter intimidation.

In at least one polling station that was monitored, the attendants unsealed the ballots delivered under United Nations Police protection.

[21] Ermenegildo Lopes, the leader of the Bloku Ploklamador, said that his party's representatives indicated that no one would cross the 50% threshold to avoid a run-off.

"[22] Ameerah Haq, the UN secretary-general's special representative for East Timor, was reported to have said that if the presidential and parliamentary elections go off without incidents the UNMIT would leave the country.

[37] Al Jazeera suggested that a win for Ruak would adversely effect FRETILIN's position in the parliamentary election by showing support for Gusmão's incumbent coalition.

[24] The Australian suggested that the voting patterns were indicative of a tough negotiation process, after the parliamentary election, to form a government, even harder than the previous appointment of Xanana Gusmão after the 2006 East Timorese crisis.

It also quoted the co-ordinator of the Timor-Leste Friendship Network/Deakin University Observer Mission Damien Kingsbury as saying Gusmão would be happier with the result than FRETILIN's leader Mari Alkatiri, who seeks to become prime minister again.