Timor-Leste voted on Friday to scrap the lifetime pension law for MPs and public officials, following student-led demonstrations against lavish perks in one of South-East Asia's poorest countries.

Former MPs and some public officials are entitled under a law passed in 2006 to a pension equivalent to their salary.

But 62 members of parliament voted unanimously on Friday to pass a new law that scrapped lifetime pensions for MPs, former presidents, prime ministers and cabinet ministers.

"To all university students, your demands have been fulfilled. Please stop the demonstrations," Olinda Guterres, an MP from the Khunto party, said after the vote.

Protests broke out last week in the capital, Dili, with thousands of demonstrators demanding that parliament cancel a $4.2 million plan to purch

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