THIMPHU, Bhutan, March 22 (UPI) -- Citizens of Bhutan are reluctantly preparing to vote in their first national election under orders from a king who prefers constitutional monarchy.
The vote for parliamentary representatives is scheduled for Monday.
"We are reluctant democrats," Sonam Tobgay Dorji, a candidate for parliament, told the Los Angeles Times. "It's been forced on us, and we have to embrace it."
Bhutan, a country in the Himalayas twice the size of Vermont, has about 700,000 people. It has been ruled for more than a century by the Golden Throne, currently occupied by Jigme Singye Wangchuck.
The two new parties -- Druk Phuensum Tshogpa, or DPT, and the People's Democratic Party, or PDP -- have been campaigning mostly with promises for more roads and better services. The campaign has been tightly regulated.
"Bhutanese politics is still without ideology," said Sonam Tobgay Dorji, a PDP candidate with a Harvard degree. "So basically, what people are looking at is what candidates can deliver."
