A realist at home and abroad

A realist at home and abroad

From head of a two-man opposition to prime minister of Bhutan in just five years, Tshering Tobgay continues to keep his finger on the pulse of the people.

While little is known or written about Bhutan’s new prime minister, even in the South Asian media, Tshering Tobgay knows not only the pulse of the people of his country, but also the delicate dynamics of regional geopolitics.

Emerging from an executive committee meeting of his People’s Democratic Party (PDP) at a private resort in Thimphu, Tobgay sat on a sofa in the dining hall and spoke to Asia Focus recently about his priorities as the new leader.

The 47-year-old former opposition leader won Bhutan’s second general election held on July 13, amid concerns that all was not well between the Himalayan country and its southern neighbour India. In his campaign, Tobgay promised to speedily improve relations with New Delhi.

“Bhutan’s relationship with India is very strong,” he said. “[But] we can’t take it for granted, so we’ll have to work on it; we’ll have to further foster it.”

Jigmi Y. Thinley, the former prime minister and leader of the Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party (known locally as the DPT), supposedly had caused concerns in India after his meeting with former Chinese premier Wen Jiabao on the sidelines of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro last year.

Media reports suggested that India — Bhutan’s biggest trade and development partner — reacted to Thinley’s alleged warming up to China by seeking to engineer election results in the Himalayan nation by withdrawing subsidies on cooking gas and kerosene just before the vote.

Thinley accused Tobgay of politicising Bhutan’s “sacred” relations with India for electoral gains.

Bhutan, a constitutional monarchy of about 740,000 people, is crammed between the regional rivals of India and China. But Tobgay, who holds a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University, appears to be mindful of India’s geopolitical concerns.

“As far as the PDP is concerned, we see [relations with India] as a cornerstone of our foreign policy, and we will work toward strengthening them,” he said. “We can’t take [India] for granted.”

While New Delhi appears to be happy with Tobgay’s victory, it may not be good news for Beijing.

“As far as China is concerned, they are a reality. It’s a neighbour,” said Tobgay, who has an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.

Asked why Bhutan should not have relations with China, Tobgay said: “We have to be sensitive to the geopolitical realities of the region. And we need to first resolve the border issue [with China].”

Bhutan shares a 470-kilometre long undemarcated border along Tibet. It is believed that Beijing has raised the prospect of negotiating border disputes as leverage to achieve its strategic interests.

Interestingly, Tobgay comes from a constituency in Haa District, which lies along Bhutan’s border with Tibet.

While Bhutan established relations with dozens of countries during Thinley’s tenure, Tobgay’s party made little mention of foreign policy in its manifesto, apart from focusing on the need to foster relations with India.

Tobgay might favour the status quo when it comes to Bhutan’s longtime friendship with India, but he talks about change at home.

“We campaigned on a platform for change,” he said. “And I think the electorate was ready for change. We’ve had a democracy for five years in Bhutan, and democracy means change in our context.

“But I think the transition was so smooth and effortless, somehow people didn’t feel any change. This is why the PDP has been given the mandate.”

Thinley’s party disagrees, and has sought to discredit Tobgay’s victory. The losing party made a 15-point submission to the King of Bhutan, making serious allegations against Tobgay’s party, including politicisation of the Royal Secretariat.

Asked about the allegations, Tobgay said, “We were not asked for any response by any institution, so we are not required to respond.”

But he also added, “It’s an unfortunate part of the learning of a democratic process. So, everybody will have to bear with us politicians for a few more years. We hope that in the next five years, we can create a system where such allegations are unnecessary after every election.”

The allegation by the DPT that officials in the royal office helped Tobgay to win was widely seen as an attempt to drag King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck into politics and led to widespread anger among the Bhutanese people.

It seems accepting defeat is not easy for Bhutanese politicians. In 2008, after the country’s first-ever democratic election, Tobgay’s party had also approached the King, alleging that the election was not free and fair. Additionally, in April that year, about 400 supporters of the PDP came to Thimphu to demand reinstatement of absolute monarchy.

In the 2008 election, the PDP won only two of the National Assembly’s 47 seats, and one of the winners was Tobgay.

It was not conceivable at the time that Tobgay would attain the country’s highest executive office in just five years. Though popular in his own constituency, he was seen as little more than a protege of founding president Sangay Ngedup, who resigned after the 2008 election to accept responsibility for what he described as “the worst defeat in the history of elections”.

Tobgay, the first Bhutanese to leave the civil service to join active politics, was appointed the opposition leader because he was senior to the only other legislator from the PDP. He was later made the president of the PDP.

Tobgay comes from a humble home. His mother was a construction labourer who worked on Bhutan’s first road project, and his father was a soldier. He studied on government scholarships.

Tobgay’s victory can partly be attributed to his ability to connect with people. For a start he is the country’s most popular blogger. He started his blog, www.tsheringtobgay.com, in 2009. Although his posts did not generate much response, he did not quit. Within a year, people began to take note of his opinions.

Tobgay travelled widely within the country as the opposition leader, and addressed people’s concerns both on his blog and in parliament, which made him highly popular. He also represented the country’s first institutional opposition, while in the past the people had seen dissent only in more subtle manifestations.

Tobgay made many popular moves as the leader of the two-member opposition.

When the cabinet decided to raise indirect taxes on commodities such as automobiles, Tobgay took the government to court, claiming the constitution allows only the legislature to raise taxes. Tobgay won the country’s first constitutional case. Thinley’s government also enacted a law banning the production and sale of tobacco, and a young monk became the first to be charged under it. Tobgay, who doesn’t smoke, hired a lawyer to defend the monk.

Thinley also opposed Thinley’s efforts to sell Bhutan’s philosophy of gross national happiness (or GNH, an alternative and holistic way of measuring the country’s progress) globally. Tobgay saw it as distraction from the real needs at home.

It is not the government’s job to run an international public relations campaign for GNH, Tobgay said. “GNH is a reminder that a government should not just be driven by a narrow economic agenda; rather it should have policies that promote holistic development. That’s it,” he said, adding emphatically, “We’ll leave the scholarship of GNH to GNH experts.”

Tobgay is a Buddhist, but he does not wear his religion on his sleeve. Asked if the country’s majority religion has played a role in his life, he said he hoped so. “And if it hasn’t then I need to dig deep to see what has corrupted me,” he said, and laughed.

“Buddhism is not just a religion. In Bhutan, it transcends; it’s a philosophy, it’s a way of life. As such no Bhutanese can say they have escaped the good, the bad and the ugly of religion, of Buddhism.”

Asked if Buddhism contributed to making Bhutan a uniquely peaceful country in a troubled region, Tobgay appeared doubtful. “Well, Sikkim was predominantly Buddhist, Nepal has a lot of Buddhists, India is the fountainhead of Buddhism, and Sri Lanka is dominated by Buddhism,” he said.

“I’d pay a lot more attention to the leadership exercised by our kings,” he added, and laughed once again, making yet another statement to strike a chord with the people of Bhutan, who attribute their country’s well-being to its monarchs alone.

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