Bhutan’s 2013 General Elections was hijacked by India. When that became apparent to me, I withdrew my participation in the electoral process by refusing to cast my vote on the polling day. I came to the conclusion that whichever way people voted, the result would be the same. I wanted no part of it and made my stand clear through my post on this Blog titled “2013 General Elections: India is Victorious”.
Twenty-eight readers commented - most of them accused me of being pro-DPT. There was nothing useful about those comments and thus, I refused to post them - except for one, which had been already posted, and it would have been rude to delete it.
I believe that the result of the 2013 General Elections was decided and manipulated in New Delhi - months, if not years, before our election process began. Someone else - a reader of the BBS website too seem to have understood this. He/she commented; “In this election we were looking for a new Prime Minister - instead we ended up getting a Chief Minister”. Not the exact words but something on those lines.
New Delhi already knew the outcome of the elections. That is evident from the following letter of felicitation sent by the Indian Prime Minister to the PDP President. Dr. Man Mohan Singh had already announced Bhutan’s election results on the 13th of July, 2013 when our own Election Commission could finish compiling the results and announce it only a day later - on the 14th July, 2013.
Twenty-eight readers commented - most of them accused me of being pro-DPT. There was nothing useful about those comments and thus, I refused to post them - except for one, which had been already posted, and it would have been rude to delete it.
I believe that the result of the 2013 General Elections was decided and manipulated in New Delhi - months, if not years, before our election process began. Someone else - a reader of the BBS website too seem to have understood this. He/she commented; “In this election we were looking for a new Prime Minister - instead we ended up getting a Chief Minister”. Not the exact words but something on those lines.
New Delhi already knew the outcome of the elections. That is evident from the following letter of felicitation sent by the Indian Prime Minister to the PDP President. Dr. Man Mohan Singh had already announced Bhutan’s election results on the 13th of July, 2013 when our own Election Commission could finish compiling the results and announce it only a day later - on the 14th July, 2013.
I am currently going through a dilemma - I have not been able to congratulate a single winning candidate or offer my sympathies to the losing ones. For the life of me, I cannot decide how to phrase my words?
Congratulations on your win? – NOT TRUE!
My sympathies on your loss? – NOT TRUE BY A LONG SHOT!
Congratulations on your win? – NOT TRUE!
My sympathies on your loss? – NOT TRUE BY A LONG SHOT!
Au Yeshey,
ReplyDeleteMark my words, I am sure HE Ambassador Haran will have a near perfect explanation for this, just like he had for all the other mysterious things that happened just days before we went to the polls. As much as I feared, the 2013 elections has divided the country even more than the 2008 elections. And mind you, things are not going to get any better, the disgraceful DNT has already met to finalize their strategy for 2018.
U r good only with birds. Ur reason of abstaining the election is meek and narrow.
ReplyDeleteYeshey is the wise one here, if I had known that the elections were going to be rigged, I too would not have traveled for 8 days to caste my vote. Not only would it have saved me a lot of time, it would have saved me a lot of money too. It will now be a battle for Bhutan to boast about a vibrant and unique democracy, the 2013 elections has sullied the image of our country forever. Five years down the road, you will see very low voter turn outs in all or most polling stations, many people have already declared that they would not be voting anymore. This is a clear message to the ECB that the 2013 elections were far from being free or fair.
DeleteIt was quite sad reading what you wrote. We were fortunate that only one party resorted to unfair means even risking our national security to meet vested interests. Just imagine what the future of our democracy would be like if DPT retaliated tit for tat. We would then not be any different from our neighbourhood. Anyways, some kind of a check needs to be in place so that our budding politicians don't go into 2018 believing anything will do. It's still not too late and hopefully, the 15 points submission by DPT to His Majesty the King will serve such a purpose.
ReplyDeleteif it was 12 july 2013 then yeah you are right .... but sorry its 13 july 2013. though it was not officially declare by the ECB whole world knew the winning party on 13 july it self. And one thing that letter was not sent in the morning but late at night after the result is out on the BBS and other media. In short whole world knew that PDP won the election on 13 july ... do u wana say whole world is involve in this election as a part of PDP.
ReplyDeleteWinning is official only after ECB declares it. In this case, you could say India pre-empted ECB's right to declare PDP the winner. Theoretically, you couldn't rule out grounds on which PDP could be disqualified even though ECB had already made a lot of concessions to them to be in the race.
DeleteBesides, was PM of India in his office with drafted letter in one hand and seal in another that late at night just to congratulate PDP on 12th July 2013
ReplyDelete