Druk Thuendrel Tshogpa (DTT) is a Bhutanese political party registered with the Election Commission of Bhutan on 22 August 2022 under the presidency of Kinga Tshering. It contested the 2023–24 National Assembly election, finished fifth of five parties in the primary round with 9.84 per cent of the vote, and was eliminated before the general round.
Druk Thuendrel Tshogpa (Dzongkha: འབྲུག་མཐུན་འབྲེལ་ཚོགས་པ་; abbreviated DTT) is a political party in Bhutan. The Dzongkha name is variously rendered in English as "Bhutan Unity Party", "Bhutan Alliance Party" or "Bhutan Friendship Party" — the party itself has used "Thuendrel" as its operative identity rather than a fixed English translation. It was registered with the Election Commission of Bhutan on 22 August 2022, becoming the fifth party on the national register and the first new party admitted in nearly a decade.[1]
DTT is led by Kinga Tshering, a former member of the National Assembly who represented North Thimphu for the Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT) in the 2013 parliament. Chenga Tshering, a 2018 DPT candidate from Thrimshing in Trashigang, serves as vice-president. The party established its headquarters in Trashigang town rather than the capital — an unusual choice for a Bhutanese party and one its leaders framed as a deliberate commitment to the eastern dzongkhags.[2]
Not to be confused with: The Bhutan Tendrel Party (BTP), whose Dzongkha name (འབྲུག་རྟེན་འབྲེལ་ཚོགས་པ་) sounds similar to English speakers but is a separate party. BTP, founded by Dasho Pema Chewang, reached the general round of the 2024 election and became the official opposition. DTT finished fifth in the same primary round and did not enter parliament.
Registration and founding
DTT filed its registration application with the Election Commission on 26 May 2022 and received its certificate of registration on 22 August 2022, bringing the total number of registered parties in Bhutan to five alongside DPT, the People's Democratic Party (PDP), Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa (DNT) and the Bhutan Kuen-Nyam Party (BKP). It was the first party to clear registration since 2013.[2]
Several of its founding office-bearers and dzongkhag coordinators were former DPT members, particularly in eastern Bhutan. Reporting by The Bhutanese in 2022 described DTT's initial strategy as an attempt to absorb DPT's eastern base first, then build outward into the western and southern dzongkhags ahead of the 2024 election.[3]
At registration the party reported roughly thirty confirmed candidates, including twelve women. Kinga Tshering told the Bhutan Broadcasting Service on the day of approval that there was "a great sense of accomplishment and joy but at the same time a big worry and anxiety", and indicated that the leadership would undertake a familiarisation tour of the dzongkhags under Election Commission guidance.[2]
Platform and "Sunomics"
DTT's manifesto, dated 3 November 2023 and filed with the Election Commission, is built around a concept the party calls Sunomics — a label derived from its sun-and-sky election symbol and from "economics". The manifesto defines Sunomics as "Buddhist Capitalism with the spirit of GNH", framing wealth creation as an instrumental route to Gross National Happiness rather than a departure from it.[4]
The policy positions grouped under this heading include deregulation of private enterprise, expansion of extractive industries including mining, introduction of a private healthcare tier alongside the existing free public system, and facilitation of offshore banking. These positions distinguished DTT from the other four parties in 2023–24, which on economic questions largely defended the existing state-led, consensus-oriented framework around hydropower, free healthcare and free education.[5]
The Buddhist concept invoked by the name — thuendrel, commonly translated as "harmony", "unity" or "auspicious connection" — was used by the party to frame its pitch as one of reconciliation across regional and generational lines. Candidate selection, according to the leadership, was decentralised: dzongkhag teams vetted prospective candidates locally and a central eleven-member committee performed final background checks. Policy pledges were to be drafted at the constituency level in an attempt to avoid national promises the party could not deliver.[3]
2023–24 National Assembly election
DTT contested the primary round of the fourth National Assembly election on 30 November 2023. Five parties competed. The Election Commission of Bhutan's declared results were:
| Party | Votes | Share | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| People's Democratic Party | 133,217 | 42.54% | Advanced |
| Bhutan Tendrel Party | 61,331 | 19.58% | Advanced |
| Druk Phuensum Tshogpa | 46,694 | 14.91% | Eliminated |
| Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa | 41,106 | 13.13% | Eliminated |
| Druk Thuendrel Tshogpa | 30,814 | 9.84% | Eliminated |
DTT finished last. Turnout across the primary round was 63.00 per cent, with 313,162 valid votes cast. Under the two-round system established by the 2008 Constitution, only the top two parties advance to the general round, so DTT was eliminated along with the outgoing coalition partners DNT and the historically dominant DPT.[6]
The headline story of the primary round was the elimination of DPT for the first time since the restoration of democracy in 2008, and of the incumbent DNT, which had formed the government under Prime Minister Lotay Tshering. DTT's own result was modest, but its emergence as one of the three eastern-based challengers contributed to the fragmentation of the DPT vote that cleared the way for the PDP and BTP to advance.[7]
The general round on 9 January 2024 was contested between PDP and BTP. PDP won 30 of the 47 seats with 54.98 per cent of the vote and BTP took the remaining 17 seats, returning Tshering Tobgay as Prime Minister for a second, non-consecutive term. DTT, having been eliminated at the primary stage, did not appear on the January ballot.[8]
Status since 2024
DTT remains registered with the Election Commission as of early 2026 but holds no seats in the National Assembly and no positions in the National Council, which is non-partisan by constitutional design. Its party page on the Election Commission website, which hosts its charter, manifesto and symbol, was last updated in late 2025.[4] In Bhutanese practice, parties that fail to advance beyond the primary round are not deregistered and can contest subsequent elections; DPT itself, which dominated the first two parliaments, was eliminated in 2018 and 2023–24 but continues to operate.
Coverage of the party in Kuensel and BBS has fallen away sharply since January 2024, and there has been no reporting of by-election candidates, major policy interventions or leadership changes. Its future prospects are tied to whether the Sunomics platform — the only distinctively pro-market pitch in the 2023–24 field — finds a larger audience in the next cycle, and whether it can retain the eastern district organisation it built around former DPT members.
Place in the Bhutanese party system
Since parties were legalised under the 2008 Constitution, the Bhutanese party system has been marked by rapid turnover. Of the parties that have contested general elections, only PDP has won a national election more than once. DPT, which governed from 2008 to 2013, failed to advance from the primary round in both 2018 and 2023–24. DNT, which governed from 2018 to 2023, was eliminated at the primary stage in its bid for re-election. The Druk Chirwang Tshogpa (DCT), which briefly contested in 2013, has since dissolved. BKP contested the 2018 and 2023–24 primaries without advancing.
DTT fits this pattern of short-lived challenger parties. Unlike PDP, DPT or DNT, it has not yet produced a parliamentary caucus, and unlike BTP it did not break through on its first attempt. It is one of several parties whose continued existence depends on the Election Commission's registration rolls rather than on a sitting bloc in parliament. Observers including the Observer Research Foundation have argued that the two-round electoral system, combined with Bhutan's small electorate of roughly 500,000 registered voters, makes it difficult for new parties to sustain the organisational infrastructure needed for a second attempt once they have been eliminated from the first.[9]
See also
- Political parties in Bhutan
- 2024 National Assembly election
- Bhutan Tendrel Party
- Druk Phuensum Tshogpa
- People's Democratic Party
- Election Commission of Bhutan
References
- Registration of Druk Thuendrel Tshogpa (DTT) as a Political Party — Election Commission of Bhutan
- Druk Thuendrel Tshogpa becomes the fifth political party — Bhutan Broadcasting Service
- Druk Thuendrel Tshogpa's plan to replace DPT in the east — The Bhutanese
- Druk Thuendrel Tshogpa — Election Commission of Bhutan (party page)
- Druk Thuendrel Tshogpa — Wikipedia
- Declaration of Results of the 4th National Assembly Elections, 2023–2024 (Primary Round) — Election Commission of Bhutan
- 2023–24 Bhutanese National Assembly election — Wikipedia
- Bhutan National Assembly January 2024 Election — IPU Parline
- Analysing Bhutan's fourth National Assembly elections — Observer Research Foundation
Test Your Knowledge
Think you know about this topic? Try a quick quiz!
Help improve this article
Do you have personal knowledge about this topic? Were you there? Your experience matters. BhutanWiki is built by the community, for the community.
Anonymous contributions welcome. No account required.