Bhutan announces results of first vote

Bhutan announced the first 15 members elected to the upper house following the tiny Himalayan nation's first national poll as…

Bhutan announced the first 15 members elected to the upper house following the tiny Himalayan nation's first national poll as it shifts to democracy after a century of absolute monarchy, election officials said.

Winners included three women, the Election Commission said.

The commission has not yet said how many voters turned out for Monday's elections for the National Council, as the upper house will be known.

"The National Council elections were a success. The voting passed off well as it was planned," Kunzang Wangdi, chief election commissioner, said in Thimphu, the capital.

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More important polls are expected to take place in February and March with elections to the lower house, when newly formed political parties will be able to take part.

Many of the candidates are young, partly the result of a rule that all candidates must be university graduates, a young demographic in Bhutan.

The mostly Buddhist country has been preparing for democracy since former monarch Jigme Singye Wangchuck decided to hand power to an elected government, even as many of his citizens said they were quite happy with the way things were.

The monarchy, now headed by Wangchuck's 27-year-old Oxford graduate son, King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, remains popular in Bhutan. Some citizens have confessed to being nervous that their country may be spoiled by the changes to come.

Others are excited that the country, where televisions only arrived in 1999, is beginning to shed its cocoon and join the modern world.