Resource-strapped parties may need to prioritise their politicking by population
Political parties should look towards the country’s east if they want to get past the primary round — that is if there is one — during next year’s parliamentary elections.
The primary round, where all registered political parties are eligible to contest, is about securing “popular votes”, and the parties bagging the highest and the next highest number of votes will head for the general election.
That said, almost 40 percent of the slightly over 400,000 total eligible voters, the Election Commission of Bhutan has projected, are from the six dzongkhags in the region.
Of these, except for Trashiyangtse and Lhuentse, the remaining four dzongkhags feature on the top six of the overall voter eligibility list.
Dzongkhags like Trashigang, which has the highest voters reserve, more than 44,000, and Mongar, the third highest with almost 32,000, have voting population of almost two or three western and central dzongkhags combined.
Following the eastern region is the south, with Samtse and Sarpang alone bearing almost 70,000 eligible voters.
Observers following elections closely say, for cash strapped political parties, it would make sense to look at the demographics, and prioritise by population and number of voters while campaigning for next year’s elections.
As such, to get to as many voters in a limited period of time, it would be reasonable to target dzongkhags like Trashigang, Samtse and Mongar.
But to get to the voters from those dzongkhags does not necessarily mean travelling all the way to those places.
An observer said political parties should concentrate on Thimphu first, where “one in every six Bhutanese” lives.
“Why would I go to villages, be it east or south, when people don’t live there?” he said, adding people would vote from their respective dzongkhags when the time comes, but that they lived in the capital for now.
Following that would be other town areas, like Phuentsholing, which has a population density that is more than a couple of dzongkhags combined.
In doing so, some said, highlighting the issues, besides the national ones, that are relevant to those regions, would help garner attention and support.
Once the major towns are covered, it makes sense to take on dzongkhags with more voters.
“But being a small country, where every single vote would make a big impact, it would be unwise to ignore smaller places,” the observer said.
There was also a risk involved in simply focusing on urban areas for recent trends, especially local government elections, have indicated it was mostly those in villages who could make it to the polls to get their votes counted.
With the possibility of three elections, including the National Council and the two assembly election rounds, in less than six months, urban voters making it to villages to cast votes appeared unlikely.
Many said, while it was the election commission’s job to encourage voters to go and vote, political parties had as much responsibility.
In asserting themselves and their ideologies, political parties were expected to awaken minds, make people feel the future was at stake, and give them compelling reasons to go all the way back home to vote.
“They’ll have to catch the imagination of people to have them back up the party,” a former media practitioner said.
On election commission’s part, while extending postal ballot facilities to as many voters as possible, after studying the cases, they were also looking at the possibility of advanced or early voting system that would enable people to vote from places they resided.
Meanwhile, Gasa had the lowest number of eligible voters, slightly less than 2,000 voters; and Haa, with about 7,500 voters, had the second lowest.
Kesang Dema | Thimphu
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