First Elections in Bhutan

On March 24 Bhutan held their first democratic elections. After 100 years of monarchy, the King decided Bhutan should be a democracy. In an interesting twist, the people, who love their king, did not want a democracy. This was, after all, the king who established the policy of Gross National Happiness.

Compared to elections in the United States, these are very polite. Posters are only allowed on specific billboards. Commercials on the Bhutanese Broadcasting System (BBS) involve people walking through fields singing about the importance of voting. The two parties are promising the same things - roads and clean water in the villages. There are still many places where you have to walk for days to reach villages as there are no roads through this very mountainous country.

The Druk Truth Party (DTP) won by a landslide. The papers (which came out two days later) had the story. 44 out of 47 districts elected a DTP candidate. Only 3 districts elected a People's Democratic Party Candidate. The election observers I met said that the elections themselves went extremely well and efficiently. Bhutan used the electronic voting machines from India that work extremely well. In the remote villages, helicopters were used to deliver the machines and pick up the results. However, they were a little less happy about the strong one party majority result. But for a first election I think this was as good as you could get.

Given the US' problems with hanging tags and electronic voting machines maybe they should consider the same thing. After all, any system that allows the population of India to vote and get results efficiently has something going for it.