THIMPHU: Bhutan’s opposition People’s Democratic Party scored an upset victory yesterday, a news website reported, as voters gave their verdict on five years of democracy.
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) had won 32 seats in the vote for parliament while the incumbent Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT) party had snared just 15 seats, according to the website of Bhutan’s national newspaper Kuensel, as of 1830 GMT.
The winning party needed 24 out of 47 seats up for grabs to form the next government, according to the Kuensel website, after two other groups were knocked out in a primary voting round in May.
The polling marked only the second time that voters in the Himalayas’ last remaining kingdom had elected a government.
It was not immediately possible to contact the Election Commission of Bhutan to confirm the results. Official results were due today.
The royalist DPT won the first election by a landslide in 2008 and bagged this year’s primary round with 45 percent of votes.
But the election process was stirred up by a recent straining of ties with India, which suddenly cut subsidies earlier this month on cooking gas and kerosene to the kingdom. “People blame the incumbent government for not addressing the economy, which is in a very bad shape, and the subsidy cut — all this seems to be adding to their woes,” said political analyst Kencho Wangdi ahead of the results.
AFP
