Records show voters preferred their own candidates

From the details of the council elections on Friday, the five candidates have impressed their voters in the gewogs they represent. Each of them had won with good margin from their gewogs leaving it to the postal ballot to decide.

Council-elect Tshewang Rinzin had won because of the postal ballot votes. He was trailing Tshokey Dorji by 36 votes cast on the polling day on EVMs. Tshokey Dorji secured the highest with 1,709 votes through the machine. 

Given his law background and also his father, a highly regarded former gup in Chang gewog, he fared well to convince the voters in core Thimphu. 

However, Tshewang Rinzin, with age and experience edged him out when he received the highest postal ballots both through facilitation booth and conventional with 444 of the total 1,118. Tshokey Dorji managed only 227.

 This difference made Tshewang Rinzin win the seat with a total vote to 2,117 after he secured 1,673 EVM votes. Tshewang Rinzin from Dazhi, Kawang gewog served as the Thimphu dzongdag before he resigned to contest, which some say could have contributed to his victory. 

Even with five years experience in the NC, incumbent Nima Gyeltshen secured lesser votes than both Tshokey Dorji and Tshewang Rinzin with 1,586 votes (EVM and PB), indicating people wanted a change. 

Going by the EVM results from 28 polling stations, voters from each gewog had voted for their own candidate. Tshokey Dorji who had defeated three other aspiring candidates during Dhamngoi zomdu from Thimphu thromde, secured the highest votes with 1,335 votes from seven polling stations on the poll day. He didn’t get a single vote from two polling stations in Lingzhi and Naro gewogs. 

In Maedwang gewog that had five polling stations, 586 voters voted for Sangay Tshering, who represented Maedwang gewog. He got 61 from Naro gewog.

In Chang gewog, the incumbent Nima Gyeltshen secured the highest votes,178 from two polling stations. He also got the highest from three of the four gewogs, Darkarla, Lingzhi and Soe, which did not have candidates. This is attributed to his frequent visit to the gewogs during his five years tenure, which made him familiar while other four candidates could not visit the gewogs during the door-to-door campaign.

 Leki Tshering from Ge-nyen gewog who secured the lowest vote on the poll day with 761 (EVM and PB) secured the highest vote, 223, from his own gewog.  The NC-elect Tshewang Rinzin also secured the highest vote, 404 votes from Kawang gewog.  

Of the total 14,272 eligible registered voters in Thimphu, only 2,860 males and 2,336 females had turned up to cast the vote. 

The office of the Returning Officer has not received any complaint as of yesterday. 

Yangchen C Rinzin 

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