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Brief Profiles of Countries, EMBs and Partner Organisations of A-WEB
The elections to the children’s parliament were far The children’s parliament won’t have a prime min-
from child’s play: the election commission put in ister and parties. But the members will be able to
place the same apparatus it uses for parliamen- submit the proceedings of their parliament to the
tary elections - electronic voting machines, elec- speaker of the national assembly, the prime min-
tion officers, campaigning. Held at a cost of nearly ister, the opposition leaders and other senior of-
$22,000, the elections saw a 98.22 percent voter ficials. This, elected officials say, will help frame
turnout. policy in parliament.
“We have three sources for moving the motions in
\ the parliament - the government, private and indi-
vidual bills. Now, we will have the fourth source,”
says Lyonpo Jigme Zangpo, the speaker of the
national assembly, which has been providing the
election commission with technical support to set
up the children’s parliament.
Deki Pema, Bhutan’s election commissioner, has helped
set up Bhutan’s children’s parliament [Neha Tara Mehta/
Al Jazeera]
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