The Election Commission of Bhutan is Happy to release the Report on Expenditures of the Second Parliamentary Elections in the Kingdom of Bhutan, 2013 for public scrutiny and information.
The Second Parliamentary Elections in 2013, inclusive of the Bye-Election to Nanong-Shumar National Assembly Demkhong had a reserve budgetary provision of Nu. 500.00 million. Out of Nu. 432.127 million Released, an amount of Nu. 426.871 million was incurred as the actual expenditure.
A total of Nu. 14.061 million was spent towards the State Financing of election campaigns and cost of sponsored election campaigns of 67 candidates of the National Council Elections with an average of Nu. 209,872.23 per Candidate.
The campaign financing and sponsored election campaigns of the Parties and Candidates costed an average of Nu. 6,298,331.55 per Party per Constituency for the Primary Round; and Nu. 222,535.85 per Candidate for General Elections. An additional Nu. 394,382.00 was incurred for the Bye-Election campaign in Nanong-Shumar Demkhong.
For the entire Second Parliamentary Elections, taking the total cumulative number of Registered Voters of 1,143,679(for four Poll Days including one Bye-Election) a sum of Nu. 370.56 per Registered Voter (US $ 5.98) was spent.
The Conduct of Election is universally accepted to be neither easy nor cheap but due to exercise of prudence and propriety in managing financial and material resources, the Per Unit Cost has come down considerably.
Anyone interested may note that the Report is being distributed to the 20 Dzongkhags, 15 Dungkhags and 205 Gewog offices and the same time is also available on the ECB website: www.election-bhutan.org.bt/2014/ReportOnPubExp.pdf or from the ECB Head Office in Thimphu.
(Kunzang Wangdi)
Chief Election Commissioner of Bhutan
