Armanda Berta dos Santos (born 11 October 1974) is an East Timorese politician, and the leader of the Kmanek Haburas Unidade Nasional Timor Oan (KHUNTO) political party.
[7] On 22 June 2018, she was sworn in as Minister of Social Solidarity and Inclusion in the new VIII Constitutional Government, and therefore automatically had to give up her parliamentary seat.
[13] Early the following month, at a ceremony held in Suco Comoro, Dom Aleixo administrative post, Dili, Santos presided over the official launch of the payment of monetary support to households under the government's COVID-19 pandemic response.
[15][16] In an election analysis published by the University of Melbourne, Australia, she was described as: "... an enigmatic candidate ... [whose] presence and influence ... is held up by some Timorese as a testament to the greater diversity of gender, class and indeed 'traditional' Timorese culture allowed voice ...... her political persona is marked by a potential intersecting disadvantage: her gender, her socio-economic status and rural background mark her out as an outsider from the usual Dili political and civil society elite.
[2] In the ensuing first round of the election process, she finished third out of the 16 candidates, with 56,690 votes (8.7% of the total);[17] that result was described by another commentator as part of a "... power transition from the old to younger generations, and from men to women ..."[18] Santos's tenure as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister ended when the IX Constitutional Government took office on 1 July 2023.