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 ...

political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

need to be registered with

Election Commission An election commission is a body charged with overseeing the implementation of electioneering process of any country. The formal names of election commissions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and may be styled an electoral commission, a c ...

to contest

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 r ...

elections. Political parties can only contest National Assembly elections, since being an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independe ...

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 The Lhotshampa or Lhotsampa ( ne, ल्होत्साम्पा; ) people are a heterogeneous Bhutanese people of Nepalese descent. "Lhotshampa", which means "southern borderlanders" in Dzongkha, began to be used by the Bhutanese state i ...

community from the refugee camps in Nepal.

Official parties

In Bhutan,

need to be registered with Election Commission of Bhutan to participate in the Bhutanese elections.

Active parties

Deregistered parties

In 2018,

Druk Chirwang Tshogpa The Druk Chirwang Tshogpa ( dz, འབྲུག་སྤྱིར་དབང་ཚོགས་པ; Wylie: ''’brug spyir-dbang tshogs-pa'', DCT; English: ''Bhutan Commoner's Party'' or ''Party of the Common People of Bhutan'') was a Bhutanese p ...

was deregistered by the Election Commission on its own request.

Other political parties

The following parties are all based in exile. *

Bhutan Democratic Socialist Party 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 mountainous ...

Bhutan Gorkha National Liberation Front 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 mountain, mo ...

Bhutan National Congress 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 mountainous ...

Bhutan National Democratic Party 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 ...

Bhutan National Party The Bhutan National Party is a former Bhutanese unregistered political party formed to contest the Himalayan nation's 2008 general election. The party was an alliance of former civil servants, defense officials and businessmen.Thakuria, NavaBhut ...

* Bhutan Peoples' Party *

Bhutanese Movement Steering Committee Bhutanese may refer to: * Something of, or related to Bhutan * Dzongkha, the official national language of Bhutan (sometimes called "Bhutanese") * A person from Bhutan, or of Bhutanese descent, see Demographics of Bhutan * Bhutanese culture * Bhuta ...

Communist Party of Bhutan (Marxist–Leninist–Maoist) The Communist Party of Bhutan (Marxist–Leninist–Maoist) (abbr. CPB (MLM)) is an underground communist party in Bhutan. The CPB (MLM) aims to start a New Democratic Revolution and overthrow the Bhutanese monarchy and the House of Wangchuck ...

Bhutan Tiger Force The Bhutan Tiger Force (BTF) is the armed wing of the Communist Party of Bhutan (Marxist–Leninist–Maoist) (CPB (MLM)). History On 13 December 2007, the BTF injured a refugee at the Beldangi I camp near Sangam Chowk in Damak, Nepal. On ...

* Druk National Congress The Druk National Congress was formed in exile in

Kathmandu , pushpin_map = Nepal Bagmati Province#Nepal#Asia , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Bagmati Prov ...

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is ma ...

on June 16, 1994. 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 The Government of Nepal ( ne, नेपाल सरकार) is the federal executive authority of Nepal. Prior to the abolition of the Nepali monarchy in 2006 (became republic in 2008), it was officially known as His Majesty's Government. T ...

References

External links

* {{Bhutan topics