Bhutan held its first general election on 24th March, 2008 for the National Assembly. Two parties were registered by the Election Commission of Bhutan to contest the election: the Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party (DPT, for Druk Phuensum Tshogpa), which was formed by the merger of the previously established Bhutan People's United Party and All People’s Party and is led by Jigme Y. Thinley, and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) led by Sangay Ngedup. The third political party, the Bhutan National Party (BNP), had its application for the registration cancelled.
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| Thinley |
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| Ngedup |
The elections for the 47 seats of the National Assembly were planned to be held in two rounds: In the first round, voters would have voted for a party. The two parties with the largest share of the national vote would then have been able to field candidates in the 47 constituencies. However, as only two parties successfully registered for the election, the election was held in one round. The DPT have 45 seats and the PDP have 2. - Next elections December 2012.
There are over nineteen languages of Bhutan, all members of the Tibeto-Burman language family, except for Nepali which is Indo-European. Dzongkha, the national language, is the only language with a native literary tradition in Bhutan, though Lepcha and Nepali are literary languages in other countries. Dzongkha is one of 53 languages in the Tibetan language family. Other non-Bhutanese minority languages are also spoken along Bhutan's borders and among the Lhotshampa community in South and East Bhutan. One assumes all ballot papers were written in Dzongkha, but what about the outlying districts? Bhutan is a seriously hilly country as can be seen from the topographical map.
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