The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Political Capital is hard earned and a political party has to be careful on how it spends it.
The DNT came in with a lot of political capital as a party that was a break from the bitter DPT-PDP rivalry and as one that was different from either of them with slogans like ‘narrowing the gap’ and a promise of doing better than both.
However, it immediately spent quite a bit of capital in firstly not asking the Home Minister to step down with a ACC case in court, though it had asked the same of the PDP Government.
Then it spent a lot more political capital defending or at least going soft on the perpetrators of the BEO case.
It did make smart moves like higher pay for teachers and medical staff, but then criticism started mounting against it in other areas.
Along came the Pandemic and the current government has earned enormous political capital due to its handling of the COVID-19 virus and its impacts. They benefitted largely due to the stellar leadership of His Majesty and the government following His Majesty’s timely advice and commands.
Now with so much capital and good will in its hands, one would have thought DNT would cash it in the 2023 polls or even use some of it to push through important reforms.
However, instead it has chosen to blow a fair amount of it over appointing its former party General Secretary and candidate as the next Secretary General of BIMSTEC. A move that has attracted controversy and possible legal implications.
It has then frittered away more capital in the way the Centenary Farmers Market was closed and the controversial Multi Level Car Parkings were presented as an alternative.
While the reason to temporarily close the CFM makes sense, the real controversy erupted when the attempt was made to present the privately run MLCPs as alternatives when the MLCPs have much poorer ventilation.
Political capital will not last forever, and it needs to be used more wisely from here.
You have to spend your political capital on great causes for your country.
Brian Mulroney
Message from The Bhutanese
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The government’s decision to appoint a close colleague for the post of a high-profile and important post raises a number of questions:
Was it really Lyonchhen who hand-picked Tenzin Lekphell or the Foreign Minister who was one of the Founders of DNT along with Tenzin Lekphell. If so then it smacks of scratching each other’s backs, conflict of interest and imposing his will on the Foreign Ministry.
Even if that were not the case one wonders why a more qualified and experienced person in regional and international affairs was not considered – which is what the other Members of BIMSTEC viz Sri Lanka and Bangladesh had done. As pointed out by others there are senior and experienced retired civil servants who could have filled that post.
The Bhutanese is correct in concluding that the missteps by the government on the appointment of the next SG of BIMSTEC & the chaos and confusion created surrounding the Centenary Farmer’s Market has damaged the credibility of the government.
A concerned Observer