ISAS Insights

On 23 April 2013, the people of Bhutan went to the polls to elect a new upper house, or National Council (NC), for the second time ever in their country’s history. This marked the beginning of the national parliamentary election process, which will conclude before the end of July this year after the second round of polls for the lower house – the National Assembly (NA) – is held. The NA was dissolved on 20 April and has to be reconstituted within 90 days. Based on a first assessment, one can state that, besides some weather-related concerns and hurdles, the NC elections were held relatively smoothly. Most importantly, they were not disturbed by any ‘politically motivated’ violent incident of significance or by undue interference by any state institutions or other actors. In short, the elections were free and fair.