Voters in Damjee

30 January, 2008 - Gasa, the country’s largest and the least populated dzongkhag struggled, until the 11th hour, to produce a candidate to contest for a seat in the National Council.

Yet, one in three Gasaps, who cast their votes on January 29, pressed ‘no’ to the sole candidature of Sangay Khandu as their councillor.

Of the 972 votes cast in Gasa’s extremely cold and wet weather across 11 polling stations, 336 did not approve of Sangay Khandu’s candidature. The number of ‘no’ votes outdid the ‘yes’ at the polling stations in Dompangchhung, Jasukha, and one station in Laya.

It is the highest percentage of ‘no’ votes of the three dzongkhags that had single candidates standing for a seat to the National Council.

But the 29-year-old is the National Council elect of Gasa, as 626 Gasaps or 65 percent approved of his candidature as their councillor. Whether a majority of the votes came from the women is not clear. But they have certainly been saying that although the dzongkhag didn’t have a candidate for a while the one who finally turned up was a good looking one.

According to electoral officials on duty, the overcast and wet weather with light snowfall delayed voter turnout at all the polling stations in the dzongkhag. The first few voters to the polls showed up only after 10 am.

Ap Tshering, 56, from Laya Neylo and Sonam, 24, cast their votes at Goentoegang polling station, which was established for the convenience of Layaps who migrate to the warmer valleys in winter. “We accepted the candidate who is from another gewog because there was no one capable from our gewog,” said Tshering.

According to Ap Tshering, the Layaps were not happy with Sangay Khandu’s candidature as they were about with his father being the people’s representative to the erstwhile Royal Advisory Council.

“I am not well aware about the voters from Laya and Lunana, but many voters from Goenkhatoe, Khamed and Damjee are not happy with the present candidate,” said Ap Dorji Wangdi.

The dzongkhag election officer said that of the 11 stations in Gasa’s four gewogs the station in Goentoegang was established mainly for the migratory Layaps temporarily camped in the Goentoegang area. With one polling station in Laya and the other in Goentoegang 530 layaps cast their votes.

Gasa has a total of 1,543 eligible voters of which, 972 cast their votes to choose Sangay Khandu, 29, from Chogling village in Khatoe gewog as councillor.

Sangay Khandu has a B.Com honours from Kanglung Sherubtse College and an MBA from Thailand. He worked in various organisations like the RMA, BPCL and International Trade Centre in Geneva before resigning to contest for the post of a councillor.

“Deciding to contest at the last moment, I was prepared for anything. But it’s a nice feeling to have been approved by the people,” said Sangay Khandu. “I am looking forward to working under His Majesty and with people from diverse background.”

Sangay Khandu didn’t have much time to go around his dzongkhag, but high on his agenda is to stock-take what Gasa dzongkhag has. “I will plan the priorities for my people after I know what Gasa can offer.”

Considering that he had only nine days to campaign one could say that Sangay Khandu had done well. He could not cover Laya and Lunana. His nomination was accepted on January 14 and because it was so late there was no time to allow postal ballots for the Gasa NC election.