As the election officials began counting the postal ballots for Wangdue’s Athang-Thedtsho constituency yesterday afternoon, it was only after about 20 counts in favour of a Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa (DNT) candidate that one was picked out for Druk Phuensum Tshogpa.
That was enough to anticipate a similar outcome from the electronic voting machine (EVM).
DNT’s Kinley Wangchuk from Athang-Thedtsho constituency and Wangchuk Namgyel of Nyishu-Sephu in Wangdue won by comfortable margins.
The postal ballot played a part in pulling up DNT’s Athang-Thedtsho candidate Kinley Wangchuk. The EVM results were close.
DPT’s Athang-Thedtsho candidate, Nim Gyeltshen, secured 2,440 EVM votes, 141 less than Kinley Wangchuk who secured 1,420 postal votes.
Kinley Wangchuk said that although the result was not as he expected, he was happy. “I feel honoured and I would like to thank everyone who helped me.”
Although it is a provisional result, he said he was happy with the result.
It came as no surprise when DNT’s Wangchuk Namgyel won from Nyishu-Sephu constituency with 3,139 EVM votes and 1,249 postal ballots. DNT secured the highest number of votes from the constituency during the primary round.
There was a total difference of 1,327 votes between DNT’s Wangchuk Namgyel and DPT’s Nyishu-Sephu candidate Chimmi Jamtsho.
Wangdue had 20,084 registered voters of which 9,918 were in Athang-Thedtsho constituency and 10,166 in Nyishu-Sephu.
During the poll day, the Dzongkhag Election Office in Wangdue arranged four buses for about 154 voters from various gewogs who had moved to their summer residence in Khotakha. The voters requested the office for a transportation facility.
Wandgue’s Dzongkhag Electoral Officer, Dorji Wangdi, said the place was far from the polling stations and some of these voters could not vote during the primary round because of lack of transportation facility.
“They live about 38 kilometres from the polling stations and there was no transportation facility available for them,” Dorji Wangdi said.
The voters were registered at polling stations in Rubesa and Bjena gewogs.
Dechen Tshomo | Wangdue