2024 Bhutanese National Assembly Election

The 2023–24 Bhutanese National Assembly election was the fourth general election to the National Assembly of Bhutan since the country’s transition to constitutional democracy in 2008. It was conducted in two rounds under the two-round system prescribed by the 2008 Constitution: a primary round on 30 November 2023 to select the two parties that would advance, followed by a general round on 9 January 2024 to elect the 47 members of the National Assembly.

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), led by former Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, won the general round with 30 of the 47 seats against 17 for the newly registered Bhutan Tendrel Party (BTP). Tobgay was sworn in on 28 January 2024, beginning his second, non-consecutive term as head of government.^[1]

The defining feature of the election was the elimination in the primary round of both parties that had previously governed Bhutan: the outgoing Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa (DNT) under Prime Minister Lotay Tshering, and the Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT), which had won the first democratic election in 2008. Only two women were elected to the 47-seat chamber, the lowest figure since the first election in 2008.^[2]

Key facts

Primary round: 30 November 2023, five parties contested
General round: 9 January 2024, PDP vs BTP
Result: PDP 30 seats (54.98%) — BTP 17 seats (45.02%)
Turnout: 63.00% (primary) — 65.60% (general)
Prime Minister sworn in: Tshering Tobgay, 28 January 2024
Women elected: 2 of 47 (4.3%), the lowest since 2008

Background

The term of the third National Assembly, elected in 2018 under DNT, expired in late 2023. DNT had governed Bhutan through the COVID-19 pandemic, a period marked by prolonged border closures with India, disruption to tourism and hydropower construction, and a severe outflow of working-age Bhutanese to Australia. By 2023 the economy was the dominant political issue: unemployment, the currency crunch driven by the rupee peg, and emigration had displaced the earlier consensus around Gross National Happiness policy framing.^[3]

The Election Commission of Bhutan (ECB) announced the schedule in September 2023. Five parties were on the register and contested the primary round, the largest field in any Bhutanese election to date:

People’s Democratic Party (PDP) — founded 2007, governed 2013–18 under Tshering Tobgay, eliminated in the 2018 primary round
Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT) — founded 2007, governed 2008–13 under Jigmi Y. Thinley, eliminated in the 2018 primary round
Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa (DNT) — founded 2013, the incumbent governing party from 2018 under Lotay Tshering
Bhutan Tendrel Party (BTP) — registered in 2022 under Pema Chewang, a former bureaucrat and dzongdag
Druk Thuendrel Tshogpa (DTT) — registered in 2022 under Kinga Tshering, a former DPT member from North Thimphu

The Bhutan Kuen-Nyam Party, which had contested the 2018 primary, did not field candidates in 2023–24. Registration of the two new parties — BTP and DTT — was the first expansion of the party register since 2013.^[4]

Primary round, 30 November 2023

Under Bhutan’s two-round system, the primary round is a national party-list vote in which all registered parties appear on a single ballot. The two parties with the highest vote share advance to the general round; the remainder are eliminated. The primary is held roughly six weeks before the general round to give advancing parties time to field candidates in each of the 47 demkhongs (constituencies).

The ECB’s declared results of the primary round, from 313,162 valid votes cast, were:

Party	Leader	Votes	Share	Result
People’s Democratic Party	Tshering Tobgay	133,217	42.54%	Advanced
Bhutan Tendrel Party	Pema Chewang	61,331	19.58%	Advanced
Druk Phuensum Tshogpa	Pema Gyamtsho (outgoing)	46,694	14.91%	Eliminated
Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa	Lotay Tshering	41,106	13.13%	Eliminated
Druk Thuendrel Tshogpa	Kinga Tshering	30,814	9.84%	Eliminated

Primary round turnout was 63.00 per cent of the 497,058 registered voters. PDP topped the poll in both postal ballots and electronic voting machine counts, running particularly strongly in the western dzongkhags that had been its base in 2013. BTP, contesting its first election, finished a clear second.^[5]

The elimination of DPT and DNT at the primary stage was the central story. DPT, which had won the first democratic election in 2008 under Jigmi Y. Thinley and held the entire cabinet, had now been eliminated in the primary round of three consecutive elections (2013, 2018 and 2023–24). DNT, which had won the 2018 primary and general rounds under Lotay Tshering, became the first Bhutanese governing party to be eliminated at the primary stage of its own re-election bid, finishing fourth with 13.13 per cent. The combined collapse of the two incumbent parliamentary parties meant that the general round would be contested between a returning PDP and a completely new BTP.^[3]

General round, 9 January 2024

The general round was held in all 47 demkhongs across the twenty dzongkhags on 9 January 2024. PDP and BTP each fielded a single candidate per constituency; voters chose between the two. Postal ballots and facilitation booths were held ahead of poll day for civil servants, students and out-of-constituency voters.

The ECB declared final results on 10 January 2024:

Party	Votes	Share	Seats
People’s Democratic Party	179,652	54.98%	30
Bhutan Tendrel Party	147,123	45.02%	17

General round turnout was 65.60 per cent, slightly higher than the primary. PDP’s 30–17 seat margin was narrower than the lopsided outcomes of earlier general rounds (DPT took 45 of 47 in 2008, PDP 32 of 47 in 2013, DNT 30 of 47 in 2018), but sufficient to form a single-party government.^[2]

Geographically, BTP drew its strongest support from central and eastern dzongkhags including Trashigang, Mongar and Pema Gatshel, overlapping with the former DPT base. PDP swept the western and southern dzongkhags — Thimphu, Paro, Haa, Chukha, Samtse, Sarpang — and held enough eastern seats to take the majority.^[1]

Women’s representation

Only two women were elected to the fourth National Assembly out of 47 members, or 4.3 per cent. This was the lowest female representation in any Bhutanese National Assembly since the first election in 2008 and a sharp fall from the seven women elected in 2018 (14.9 per cent).^[2]

The National Commission for Women and Children and women’s civil society groups including RENEW publicly flagged the outcome as a regression. A 2019 ECB study on the determinants of voter choice and women’s participation had already identified structural obstacles including candidate recruitment patterns, campaign financing and voter attitudes about female leadership; the 2024 result was widely read as evidence that none of these had eased. Cross-reference: Gender equality in Bhutan.^[6]

Formation of the Tobgay cabinet

On 28 January 2024, in the Golden Throne Room of Tashichhodzong, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck conferred the dakyen (scarf of office) on the Prime Minister, the Speaker and the nine cabinet ministers, formally constituting the fourth democratically elected government of Bhutan.^[7]

The cabinet announced on that day was:

Prime Minister: Dasho Tshering Tobgay
Speaker of the National Assembly: Lungten Dorji
Foreign Affairs and External Trade: Lyonpo D. N. Dhungyel (Dinanath Dhungyel)
Finance: Lyonpo Lekey Dorji
Home Affairs: Lyonpo Tshering
Energy and Natural Resources: Lyonpo Gem Tshering
Health: Lyonpo Tandin Wangchuk
Education and Skills Development: Lyonpo Dimple Thapa
Infrastructure and Transport: Lyonpo Chandra Gurung
Agriculture and Livestock: Lyonpo Younten Phuntsho
Industry, Commerce and Employment: Lyonpo Namgyal Dorji

Dimple Thapa was the only woman in the cabinet. Chandra Gurung’s appointment — a Lhotshampa-origin minister holding a senior infrastructure portfolio — drew attention as a signal of ethnic-Nepali representation in a cabinet formed shortly before the 2025 US deportation crisis involving resettled Bhutanese refugees. Lekey Dorji at Finance and D. N. Dhungyel at Foreign Affairs were tasked with managing the most immediate inherited files: the rupee reserve situation and India relations, and the rollout of the Gelephu Mindfulness City project chartered by the King in February 2024.^[8]

Opposition

BTP’s 17 members formed the official opposition under Pema Chewang, who became Leader of the Opposition. It was the first time in Bhutanese parliamentary history that a party contesting its first election had taken the opposition benches. BTP drew its core parliamentary strength from Trashigang, Mongar, Lhuentse, Pema Gatshel and parts of Samdrup Jongkhar — the eastern dzongkhags that had historically returned DPT members. The party’s policy agenda, as set out in its manifesto, emphasised rural livelihoods, agricultural modernisation and decentralisation of economic development beyond Thimphu and Paro.^[1]

Observer assessments

The election was administered by the ECB without the presence of a large international observation mission. Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2024 report noted that the 2023–24 election was “competitive” and conducted “in an orderly manner,” while flagging persistent structural concerns: the ban on political parties organising at the local-government level, the disqualifying effect of Bhutan’s citizenship laws on much of the Lhotshampa population, and the continuing absence of an opposition media environment. The report maintained Bhutan’s “Partly Free” rating.^[9]

International IDEA, in its post-election analysis, described PDP’s return as a vote for “an experienced hand at a critical time” — a reference to the compounding economic pressures of emigration, hydropower delays and the need to negotiate with India on the Gelephu project — rather than an ideological realignment. The Bertelsmann Stiftung Transformation Index (BTI) 2026 country report characterised the 2023–24 cycle as a continuation of Bhutan’s pattern of peaceful alternation of government between parties whose policy platforms were only marginally distinguishable.^[10]

Independent coverage from Newsreel Asia raised questions about the ECB’s handling of candidate eligibility rulings and the short window between the primary and general rounds, which it argued had advantaged the two advancing parties at the expense of smaller challengers. These criticisms did not translate into a formal dispute of results, and no party contested the outcome.^[11]

Significance

The 2023–24 election consolidated several trends that had been visible since 2013. No Bhutanese governing party had yet won a second consecutive term; the primary round eliminated both parties that had previously governed, leaving the contest to a returning former incumbent and a first-time party. Regional polarisation between the west-and-south (PDP base) and the east-and-centre (BTP base) replaced the earlier east-west split between DPT and PDP. Women’s representation fell to its lowest level under the 2008 Constitution.

Tobgay’s second term began under inherited pressures — emigration to Australia, the rupee reserve shortfall, the transition from DNT’s pandemic recovery measures, and the rollout of the Gelephu Mindfulness City project chartered by the King in February 2024. The 2025 deportation crisis, in which US Immigration and Customs Enforcement returned resettled Lhotshampa refugees to Bhutan via India, emerged later in 2025 as the most severe foreign-policy test of the second-term cabinet.

2024 Bhutanese National Assembly Election

Background

Primary round, 30 November 2023

General round, 9 January 2024

Women’s representation

Formation of the Tobgay cabinet

Opposition

Observer assessments

Significance

See also

References

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