January 03, 2008	Thursday	Zilhaj 23, 1428

GUWAHATI (India): Bhutan has elected mostly people in their twenties and thirties to its new upper house as the tiny Himalayan state switches to democracy after a century of absolute monarchy, election officials said on Wednesday.

Eleven of the 15 members elected in the country’s first national polls on Monday are under 40, while even the oldest is a relatively spry 46, the Election Commission said.

Two of the winners are 20-somethings fresh out of college looking forward to starting their first proper job.

This youthfulness is partly the result of a rule that all candidates must be university graduates, a young demographic in Bhutan.

A little under 150,000 people voted in Monday’s elections for the National Council, as the upper house will be known, a turn-out of about 55 per cent, the commission said.

“The National Council elections were a success. The voting passed off well as it was planned,” Kunzang Wangdi, chief election commissioner, said by phone from Thimphu, the capital.

Explaining the relatively low turn-out, election officials said voters in remote villages might have been put off by the long trek to the nearest polling station.

More important polls are expected to take place in February and March with elections to the lower house, when newly formed political parties will be able to take part.

Members of the upper house, who will serve a maximum five-year term, are not allowed to join political parties.

This Buddhist country has been preparing for democracy since former monarch Jigme Singye Wangchuck decided to hand power to an elected government, even as many of his citizens said they were quite happy with the way things were.

The monarchy, now headed by Wangchuck’s 27-year-old Oxford graduate son, King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, remains popular in Bhutan, partly because of its policies focused on boosting what it calls “gross national happiness”.

Some citizens have confessed to being nervous that their country may be spoiled by the changes to come. Others are excited that Bhutan, where televisions only arrived in 1999, is beginning to shed its cocoon and join the modern world.

Another round of elections for the upper house will be held on Jan 29 in the five remaining districts where no candidates were found in time. The king will select another five members.

Monday’s vote was not without problems. The Election Commission acknowledged an unspecified number of complaints from eligible voters saying they were unable to vote because of bureaucratic glitches.—Reuters