Almost unnoticed by the rest of the world, the tiny kingdom of Bhutan is embarking on an extraordinary experiment in democracy-building that deserves more attention in India.

Last year, at the age of 52, absurdly young for an act of monarchical renunciation, the fourth King of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, abdicated the throne after 34 years of rule, in favour of his son. But before doing so he committed his nation to the path of democracy, launching the groundwork for a new Constitution that would reduce the occupant of the throne to a constitutional monarch. In a country where the king has long been revered as a father figure of almost divinely-ordained authority, that was a remarkable change. It was one his people were not ready for: people of all classes protested that they were perfectly content with their king and his benevolent autocracy, which had coined the notion of “Gross National Happiness”. But the king would not be deterred. He travelled to all the 20 districts of this mountainous Himalayan kingdom, explaining his vision of the future and exhorting his people to assume control of their own destiny. He appointed a constitution-drafting committee, chaired by the energetic Chief Justice, that drew heavily from international precedents, notably India’s. “We knew we had a lot to learn from the rest of the world,” Bhutanese Prime Minister Lympo Kinzang Dorji told me on my recent visit to Thimpu. “And one thing we could learn was to avoid other countries’ mistakes.”

Unusual features

The result is the creation of a system of democracy with some decidedly unusual features. The King was determined that his country needed a multi-party system; he was not enamoured of the partyless panchayats favoured by Nepal when it first took a similar step, nor the one-party systems followed in Africa. But he and his countrymen were equally concerned about the risk of political fragmentation: they only had to look southward to see how far democracy could go in the construction of multiple political parties representing every polarising, particularist interest. So Bhutan created a two-phase electoral system: a “primary” election in which any number of parties could compete on the basis of party lists, followed by a general election in which only the top two parties in the primary can put forward candidates — this time not on lists but on the basis of individual constituencies. It is a unique formula, untried anywhere else in the world, but it simultaneously encourages the development of coherent parties and discourages fragmentation.

I questioned the Chief Justice, Sonam Tobgyen, closely about this. He is an impressive and well-read figure, who speaks knowledgeably about the Venkatachalliah Report and quotes the speeches of Ambedkar at India’s Constitutional convention. He admitted that there were grounds for my concern that the system his committee put forward risked depriving Bhutan of individuals of talent who did not belong to one of the two winning parties. But, he argued, it was a lesser risk than that of political chaos and horse-trading that could emerge from several parties being represented in Parliament. As an Indian, I could scarcely disagree. “In India,” he said with a smile, “you have a democracy that values freedom over order. That is admirable. But we are a small country with different traditions. We are trying to promote a democracy that preserves both order and freedom”— but one which clearly values relative order over absolute freedom.

Still evolving

It took some time for political parties to emerge. Today, seven of the 10 ministers elected by the national assembly have resigned to join one of the two nascent parties, leaving an interim government of three ministers to steward the nation through the rest of the year. In the New Year that government, too, will step aside, handing the reins of governance to a completely non-partisan administration headed by the Chief Justice. His major task in his 90 days in office will be to conduct Bhutan’s first free and fair elections on the basis of mass suffrage, and to hand over to the winners. Since only two parties have been created so far, the elaborate two-stage election process may look somewhat superfluous. But elections also serve as a training ground for democracy: the exchange of hopes and promises, demands and compromises that make up a functioning democratic system. Two rounds will also play their own part in instilling the habits of voting in the Bhutanese people. And the two-party system means that the losing party will have to learn how to conduct itself as a loyal opposition — with en equal emphasis on both “loyal” and “opposi

Source: