December 1, 2004 ☼ Foreign Affairs
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
India claims to be the world’s biggest democracy, and claims to have the world’s longest constitution (at least until Alabama achieves self-determination). Neighbouring Bhutan seeks to be the world’s smallest democracy (strictly speaking, a constitutional monarchy) with perhaps the world’s smallest constitution. Small it may be, but King Jigme Singye Wangchuk wants the document to be ‘slick and comprehensive’.
What the Bhutanese constitution-makers are chewing on is whether to go in for the entertainment-oriented multi-party democracy, or a partyless system where people elect independent candidates. While it has been (wrongly) described as ‘direct democracy’, a partyless system is bound to allow the King a greater amount of control. That, however, may not be an unintended outcome.
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