Policy | 18/10/2015 – 15:25h
New Delhi, 18 oct (EFE).- Miles de tibetanos votan hoy en todo el mundo en la primera ronda de los comicios para elegir a su primer ministro o "Sikyong" and to the 44 Members of Parliament and the Government of Tibet in exile.
Around 86.000 Tibetans have registered as voters, the majority at the headquarters of the Tibetan Government in exile, in the Indian town of Dharamsala, but also in the 60 electoral offices enabled in twelve other countries, a member of the electoral commission told Efe today, Tenzing Norbu.
Voting in India, where schools opened at 09.00 local time (03.30 GMT) and they closed at 17.00 (11.30 GMT), passed without incident, Norbu explained..
"Todo marchó muy bien", the official indicated.
The current prime minister, Lobsang Sangay, part as favorite in the elections, although much of the attention during the campaign has been concentrated on Lukar Jam Atsok, president of a movement of former political prisoners in China.
Jam seeks independence for Tibet, unlike Sangay and the other three candidates, and does not support the Dalai Lama's middle way, that is, real autonomy for the region within China.
The other candidates are the spokesperson of the Tibetan Parliament in exile, Penpa Tsering; former exiled administration official Tashi Wangdu and businessman Tashi Topgyal.
After the vote, all ballots from exiled Tibetans will be sent to Dharamsala, where the count will be done and the results will be published in February.
The second phase of the elections will be held on 20 March 2016.
These are the second elections after the Dalai Lama separated political and religious power in 2011 by ceding political powers to a democratically elected leader.
Lobsang Sangay, Harvard-educated lawyer, He won those elections and since then he has been the prime minister of the Tibetan Government in exile, an Executive that no country has recognized.
The Dalai Lama fulfilled 80 years in july, which casts a pall of uncertainty over what the future of Tibet and the Tibetan exile will be like when they no longer have a leader with rock star status..
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