The People's Democratic Party ( dz, མི་སེར་དམངས་གཙོའི་ཚོགས་པ།; Wylie: ''mi-ser dmangs-gtsoi tshogs-pa''; PDP) is one of the major political parties in
Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...
, formed on 24 March 2007. The founder president of this party is Sangay Ngedup, the former prime minister and agriculture minister of the Royal Government of Bhutan. The current leader of the party is Tshering Tobgay. The People's Democratic Party submitted its application for registration on 6 August 2007 and thus became the first political party in Bhutan to do so. On 1 September 2007 the Election Commission of Bhutan registered the party. The PDP tends to be more popular in the west of the country.
The party presented candidates for the 2008 National Assembly election in all 47 constituencies. The party won only two of the
National Assembly
In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the rep ...
's 47 seats, and just under one third of the votes cast. The only other party that registered for the election, the
Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party
Druk Phuensum Tshogpa ( dz, འབྲུག་ཕུན་སུམ་ཚོགས་པ།; Wylie:'' 'brug phun-sum tshog-pa''; translation: Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party; abbr. DPT) is one of the major political parties in Bhutan. It was ...
France 24
France 24 ( in French) is a French state-owned international news television network based in Paris. Its channels broadcast in French, English, Arabic, and Spanish and are aimed at the overseas market.
Based in the Paris suburb of Issy-les-Mo ...
, 24 March 2008.
In the 2013 elections, the party won 32 seats with 54.88% of the votes.
PDP's election victory is attributed to its comprehensive campaign promises. The campaign promise focused on improving the economy which has recorded a GDP growth rate of 2%, the lowest in the recent 20 years. The confidence in the economy was at its weakest with rupee shortages, raising debt, loans being stopped by financial institutions and corruption having become a major concern.
The party came in 3rd place in the 2018 first-round primary elections, thus losing all its seats.