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List of political parties in Bhutan

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In Bhutan, political parties need to be registered with Election Commission to contest National Assembly elections. Political parties can only contest National Assembly elections, since being an independent is a requirement for contesting National Council and local government elections.

Besides the official registered parties that came into existence after the democratisation of Bhutan, many Bhutanese parties have been operating in exile since the 1990s. Most of these parties are run by exiled people from the Lhotshampa community from the refugee camps in Nepal.[1]

Official parties

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In Bhutan, political parties need to be registered with Election Commission of Bhutan to participate in the Bhutanese elections.[2]

Active parties

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Party Abbr. Registered Ideology Position Assembly seats
People's Democratic Party
མི་སེར་དམངས་གཙོའི་ཚོགས་པ་།
PDP 2007 Royalism
Liberalism
Progressivism
Centre to
centre-left
30 / 47
Druk Phuensum Tshogpa
འབྲུག་ཕུན་སུམ་ཚོགས་པ།
DPT 2007 Conservatism
Royalism
Centre-right
0 / 47
Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa
འབྲུག་མཉམ་རུབ་ཚོགས་པ་།
DNT 2013 Social democracy Centre-left
0 / 47
Druk Thuendrel Tshogpa
འབྲུག་མཐུན་འབྲེལ་ཚོགས་པ།
DTT 2022 Buddhist capitalism
0 / 47
Bhutan Tendrel Party
བྷུ་ཊཱན་རྟེན་འབྲེལ་ཚོགས་པ་།
BTP 2023 Centre
17 / 47

Deregistered parties

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In 2018, Druk Chirwang Tshogpa was deregistered by the Election Commission on its own request.[3]

In 2023, the Bhutan Kuen-Nyam Party deregistered after years of low activity.[4] The party had failed to find a new leader after Neten Zangmo resigned the position in 2018.

Other political parties

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The following parties are all based in exile.

The Druk National Congress was formed in exile in Kathmandu, Nepal on June 16, 1994.[citation needed]

On August 26, 2010, Bhutanese political parties in exile formed an umbrella group to pursue a "unified democratic movement led by Rongthong Kunley Dorji, President of the Druk National Congress. The group's offices opened in Kathmandu in November 2010, and it seems to receive some measure of support from the Nepalese government.[5]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Rizal, Dhurba P (2015). The royal semi-authoritarian democracy of Bhutan. Lexington Books. ISBN 9781498507479. OCLC 906010256.
  2. ^ "Election Act of the Kingdom of Bhutan 2008" (PDF). Government of Bhutan. 2008-07-28. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-09-21. Retrieved 2019-05-22.
  3. ^ Subba, MB (2018-02-27). "Druk Chirwang Tshogpa deregistered". Kuensel. Archived from the original on 2019-04-10. Retrieved 2019-05-22.
  4. ^ "Bhutan Kuen-Nyam Party (BKP) stands deregistered as a Political Party". ECB. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
  5. ^ Chandrasekharan, S. (2010-12-08). "BHUTAN: Political Parties in Exile Form an Umbrella Organisation: Update No. 88". South Asia Analysis Group (SAAG). Archived from the original on 2011-07-28. Retrieved 2011-05-20.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
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