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| Southeast Asia |
| Bhutan Holds Mock Elections Preparing For Democracy |
| 2007-05-28 |
| The isolated kingdom of Bhutan took another step toward democracy Monday as voters lined up for the final round of a mock parliamentary election, officials said. The vote is part of a "dress rehearsal" for a 2008 election in Bhutan, part of a remarkable transformation of the 100-year-old monarchy that is changing the world's last Buddhist kingdom into a democracy. "Observers from the U.N., India and Denmark are monitoring the elections and we expect this final phase of the mock polls to pass off without a hitch," said Kunzang Wangdi, Bhutan's Chief Election Commissioner. Last year, Bhutan's king declared his intention to step down in 2008, allowing national elections and parliamentary democracy. Under the new plan, which becomes effective after next year's vote, the king would become head of state and parliament would have the power to impeach him by a two-thirds vote. The mock election is between the Druk Yellow party, which promises the "preservation of Bhutan's culture and tradition," and the Druk Red party, which would push "industry-led development." Only 51 percent of the registered voters voted during the mock election's first round of polling on April 21, but authorities hoped Monday's turnout would be larger. Officials said they expected close to 300,000 registered voters to participate out of a population estimated between 700,000 and 2.2 million. Nepal-based separatists have threatened to carry out bomb attacks in Bhutan during Monday's mock voting, and Bhutanese authorities have deployed soldiers to maintain calm. Nepalese newspapers have published warnings by the Bhutan Tiger Force (BTF), the armed wing of the Bhutan Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist), a group formed by Bhutanese refugees currently living in Nepal. More than 100,000 Nepali-speaking people from southern Bhutan have been living in refugee camps in Nepal after fleeing Bhutan in the early 1990s. They fled after Bhutan launched a crackdown on their anti-monarchy and pro-democracy movement. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #1 Kind of like Massachusetts. |
| Posted by: Jackal 2007-05-28 23:42 |