Bhutan Selects Royalist As First Prime Minister
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
THIMPHU, Bhutan — Long known as a quirky holdout from modernity, the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan ended a century of absolute monarchy yesterday by electing a staunch royalist as its first prime minister. So it goes in Bhutan, possibly the first country in history where a king had to convince his people that democracy was a good idea. Known by its people as the Land of the Thunder Dragon, Bhutan’s mountainside monasteries have long intrigued Westerners in search of a Buddhist nirvana.
