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Former Chairperson (Thrizin), National Council, Parliament of Bhutan
From the oldest democracy in the world to the youngest democracy, I’m
here, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished participants, to talk about 10 years of
democracy in Bhutan. And I would like to thank Professor Woothisarn and KPI
for your kind invitation. Many of you in Thailand know where Bhutan is, but if
there are a few who still wonder where this tiny country is located, I’ll point it
out to you on the map. It is there. And this country is so small, surrounded by
China and India. China is 253 times bigger than us, India is 87 times. For
those who are in Thailand you may think that Nepal and Bangladesh are so
small. But compare to Bhutan, they’re almost four times larger. So, what I’m
trying to say, ladies and gentlemen, is that Bhutan is a very small kingdom
surrounded by huge republics, in terms of geography approximately. China and
India are our neighbors. But as a monarchial kingdom, Thailand is also our next
neighbor followed by Cambodia, three Buddhist kingdoms among the 44
monarchies also. We have the last surviving Himalayan kingdom, and Bhutan
was founded first time in 1626, but our monarchy is very modern, founded in
1907 based not on divine rights but on the contract, signed between the first
king and the people then. We are less than one million people.
Yesterday, 7th November, the third government was formed up the
introduction of parliamentary democracy. There are some very interesting things
about the government formed yesterday. The average ages are just 42 years,
very young, and they are led by two medical doctors, the Prime Minister and
Foreign Minister, who may have been seen in Thailand very often. We had the
youngest minister at the age of 32 years who heads the Ministry of Labor and
Human Resources. Then surprisingly, we have a minister from one of the most
remote marginal highland yak herding nomadic communities. He is one of the
few educated persons from this community. And then all Bhutan is largely a
Buddhist country. There are significant Hindu foreign with the people of Nepali
ethnicity. Two members of Nepali ethnicity had become ministers, one of
Education and the other of Economic Affairs, very important, and certainly we
have a woman minister, the second woman minister so far. Very interesting
characteristics, the third government formed yesterday.
Although the government was formed yesterday, the actual elections were
held about three weeks ago on 18th October. That day the ruling party, and ²£ ´£²¢¡¸¡¡Á¥°£°ª²£l²h²£°À¨
I’m going to use only the abbreviations for the name of the parties to make it
simple, DNT won 30 seats, and DPT owns 17 seats, 47 seats International
Assembly, small parliament, small country.
