KATHMANDU, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- Voting closed in Bhutan's general elections at 5 p.m. (1100 GMT) on Tuesday and counting of ballots was ongoing, with provisional results likely to be announced later in the evening, Secretary of the Election Commission of Bhutan (ECB) Dawa Tenzin told Xinhua.
Winners of the first round of voting in November 2023, the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the Bhutan Tendrel Party (BTP), are contesting Tuesday's vote across all 47 constituencies in the Himalayan kingdom. A party has to win at least 24 constituencies to form a government.
Both the previous government's lawmakers and their former opposition were knocked out in the primary round.
Polls started at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, with people queuing up outside polling stations in freezing temperatures in the mountainous country.
There are a total of 498,135 registered voters in the nation's fourth parliamentary elections, of which 255,227 are female and 242,908 are male, data from the Bhutan Broadcasting Service website showed.
Of the total registered voters, there are 117,114 postal ballot voters, accounting for 23.5 percent of the total registered voters, the data showed.
The poll day was declared a public holiday and all shops and offices were closed.
Bhutan, a landlocked country with a population of around 800,000, held elections for the first time in 2008 after political reforms established a bicameral parliament soon after the start of the reign of present King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck. ■
