Posted on 28 April 2008 by E-Bangladesh
Bhutan:Rocky start for Democracy
Nava Thakuria
Guest Writer
E-Bangladesh
Almost a year ago, a middle-aged Bhutanese woman trader in the Indian border town of Phuentsholing sounded an ominous note for Bhutanese democracy. “We have heard about the polls on the Indian side,” she told this correspondent. “Sometimes, unexpected incidents also come out with the elections. We do not want those here in Bhutan. After all, we are a peace-loving nation.”
In Bhutan, she added, “Today we have no strikes. Everything is on schedule. But there is lots of news about bandhs (strikes) in India that even take innocent lives. I am even scared of thinking such incidents will follow democracy in our kingdom.”
No incidents have been reported so far but multiparty democracy survived when two members of the opposition, drubbed so thoroughly in elections in late March that they won only two seats, last week decided not to resign in shame and will instead form a loyal opposition – against 45 members of the royalist party. Indeed, on the same day as the two fledgling lawmakers agreed to join the parliament, a knot of protesters gathered in the capitol of Thimpu to demand that the king bring back the absolute monarchy.
It has to be frustrating for the abdicating king, Jigme Khesar Namgye Wangchuk, who has been trying for more than two years to make his isolated kingdom into a democracy. Weaning his subjects away from the kingship, however, is not easy in a country whose relationship to its royalty stretches back through at least four generations of absolute monarchy, and to generations beyond count of previous dynasties as well.
Certainly, if this were a laboratory for democracy, Jigme supplied some of the very best equipment. He told a stunned nation in December 2005 that he would leave the throne in favor of his eldest son, the crown prince. Parties were carefully prepared, with the royalist Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party accepting a design of three flying birds as its poll symbol, while the People’s Democratic Party used a white horse.
Using some of the world’s best technology, including electronic voting machines imported from India, and running through two mock polls beforehand to educate Bhutan’s isolated citizens on how to vote, the country held a first round of elections for the upper house of parliament in December and January.
