The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Druk Gaki Tshogpa, a new political party, is ready to register with the Election Commission of Bhutan (ECB) after it holds its first convention on 14 January this year. The party is confident it can win the election.
Party founder Chheku Dukpa, a civil engineer by profession and currently working in a private firm, said, “although democracy came as the greatest gift to the people of Bhutan, it has done less in terms of strengthening our unity and harmony. The past two elections witnessed more signs of disintegration of trust among the Bhutanese people. But we are going to be there in the service of Tsa Wa Sum and we are going to play a very positive and effective role towards strengthening democracy”.
According to the Political Party Rules of the Kingdom of Bhutan, 2015, an application for registration as a political party shall be made to the election commission of Bhutan (ECB) within a month of the formation of the party. The registrar of political parties shall verify and satisfy himself or herself that the party is appropriately formed after the review of its account of receipts of admissible registration and membership fees collected from the founding members for the first year.
The rules also state that the head of the party must submit to the commission, party registration form, political party form No 1, duly filled and signed by him or her. The form submitted by the political party must contain name and election symbol of the party, name of the dzongkhag in which its Head Office is located and name and address of each dzongkhag office of a political party and name of registered members from each dzongkhag along with the account of the fees.
The founder of the party, popularly known as Jackson Drukpa, on the social media said, “we also have a written charter declaring that the party bears true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the Kingdom of Bhutan, upholds the sovereignty, national security, unity and integrity of the kingdom and also commits to the advancement of democracy and the social, cultural, political and economic growth of Bhutan”.
He said that unlike Druk Kuenphen Tshogpa, which submitted a application for registration before any party convention, they are more careful and want everything to be perfect. “Unlike any other political parties our mission, vision, values and commitments are so unique and given the opportunities we can bring about so many reforms and change Bhutan in a year,” Chheku Dukpa said. “As of now, almost 70 per cent of candidates are filled and we have almost 500 members with two members from each gewog.”
