Right to vote: one scraps, others give
Adult franchise and voting rights are only stories that over 108,000 Bhutanese in exile and another 80,000 in Bhutan heard of. This has never turned to be a reality in their life. They saw several elections in Nepal, India and in western countries where they have been resettled through UNHCR-IOM cooperation.
No worries, Bhutan never allowed its citizens to chose their leader. Voting rights in Bhutan remained only for the king. And in 2008 when people were asked to vote, it was controlled, decision made from the top and lollipops distributed in such a way that it was the grace of the king to let people choose their leader.
A human being is born with his/her right to franchise. It is not someone who should decide, be so grateful to let they use their right. A country can never belong to a family – better a family’s status is better determined through popular mandate. And the royals have never came forward to test their real popularity through secret ballot. Because they fear.
This is satire. Many Bhutanese not using their adult franchise in the land they were born are making way to use this right in a different country. In Australia and New Zealand, resettled Bhutan will start using their adult franchise from this year (next year in Australia) – a chance they waited for so long. New Zealand is holding general election on November 26 this year. This will be the first case Bhutanese to use their voting rights ever in their life. Bhutanese-Australian will start using their voting rights from 2012. Suits are likely to follow in Europe and then in Americas.
It is indeed honour for Bhutanese people that they finally will see what difference they can make with one vote. A few days back, a minister in Bhutan told me they are working towards solution of the stateless people in the country and that we must forget the past to work for future. He was referring to the resettled Bhutanese.
We rarely believe on what Bhutan government say not because they are opponent party but because they cheated and never did what they promised. Rather, without any prejudice and promises, the western countries are letting us use our inborn rights as human and live as human being. In sentiments, this will further enhance our hatred to despotism and nepotism in Bhutanese politics.
Indeed, Bhutanese history shows the hypocrisy and deception of the ruling oligarchy right from the time of Asley Eden’s visit of Bhutan. No other groups of Bhutanese but us made stateless by the regime have seen blatant examples of extreme deception of the international community and the greatest examples of hypocrisy of the Bhutanese government. So when a minister talks about his “concerns”of the people made stateless by the regime of the most hypocritical and ‘remarkable’ fourth dragon king, it is another example of HYPOCRICY handed down by K-4. As along as K-4 reigns in Bhutan behind as a SHADOW KING, we ‘forced-to-live-in-exile Bhutanese’ can never ever dream of casting a vote standing on our homeland’s sacred soil.