Bhutan Becomes a Constitutional Monarchy
Bhutan had been ruled by the Wangchuck dynasty since 1907 and remained largely closed — television and the internet were legalised only in 1999. From the late 1990s the fourth king devolved executive power to a council of ministers, introduced provisions for the monarch's removal by parliament, and directed the drafting of a constitution, touring the country to explain a document that many subjects reportedly asked him not to enact. He abdicated in favour of his son in 2006, four years earlier than announced, to place the transition beyond his own reign. Mock elections were conducted in 2007 to familiarise voters with a process none had experienced. The 2008 elections produced a large majority for one of two permitted parties, and the constitution codified Gross National Happiness as a guiding principle along with a requirement that 60 percent of the country remain forested. Left outside this account is the expulsion in the early 1990s of roughly 100,000 Lhotshampa, Nepali-speaking southerners, who spent decades in refugee camps in Nepal and were mostly resettled to third countries.
- Year: 2008 CE
- Category: Political
