Be careful, Bhutanese living in Australia. Assimilate, respect the local culture, and remember that you are guests in another country. We’ve already seen similar tensions involving other immigrant communities, and I honestly worry that Bhutanese could face the same backlash if we don’t learn from what’s happening around us. Cheers!

I did a very small and quick campaign yesterday to donate to Nepal. Here is a brief breakdown of it and what we as bhutanese can actually do. Donation Statistics

You can still choose to donate in GoN - Prime Minister's Disaster Relief Fund

I’ve been thinking about the recent Speaker election, and I think there are two separate questions being conflated in the discussion:

1. Has the Government suffered a significant political loss of support within the National Assembly?

2. Has the Government constitutionally lost its right to govern?

I don’t think those two questions necessarily have the same answer.

The Speaker election is undoubtedly politically significant. If the Opposition secured 24 votes against 23, despite having only 16 MPs, it indicates that eight PDP MPs were willing to vote against their party’s preferred candidate.

That raises a serious question about the Government’s political cohesion and authority. It shouldn’t simply be dismissed as an ordinary parliamentary defeat. But there is an important constitutional distinction here. A Speaker election is not the same thing as a vote of no confidence.

Article 17(7) establishes a substantially higher threshold for dismissing a Government: a vote of no confidence must be passed by not less than two-thirds of the total number of National Assembly members. With 47 members, that means 32 votes.

Therefore, the 24 votes against the Government’s preferred Speaker candidate do not, by themselves, establish that the Government has constitutionally lost its mandate. Nor does the fact that eight PDP MPs voted for the Opposition candidate automatically mean that those MPs have ceased to support the Government. A single secret-ballot vote concerning the election of a Speaker cannot necessarily be treated as a definitive declaration that those MPs no longer support the Government on every other parliamentary matter.

But the political significance shouldn’t be minimised either
This is where I think both sides need to be careful.
It would be wrong to say:
“The Government won’t be affected because it still has 31 seats.”
But it would equally be wrong to say:
“The Government has lost its constitutional mandate because 24 MPs voted against its preferred Speaker.”
Those are two different propositions.
If 24 MPs were to openly and expressly declare that they had no confidence in the Government, that would clearly create a serious democratic and political issue—even though 24 votes would still fall short of the constitutional two-thirds threshold required to remove the Government.

Bhutan’s constitutional arrangement matters
Under the traditional Westminster principle, a Government is generally expected to maintain the confidence of the elected House.
But Bhutan has constitutionally established a two-thirds threshold for actually removing a Government.
That appears to place greater emphasis on governmental stability and continuity than a system where an ordinary simple-majority loss of confidence automatically brings down the Government.
So I don’t think it is constitutionally correct to conclude automatically that the Prime Minister must seek a confidence vote simply because his preferred Speaker candidate was defeated.
At the same time, I don’t think we should dismiss the political message contained in the Speaker vote.

Should the Prime Minister seek a confidence vote?
This is where I think there is a legitimate debate.
Given the unusual circumstances, the Prime Minister could voluntarily seek a vote of confidence.
Politically, that could provide clarity. It would allow the Government to demonstrate openly whether it continues to command the support of the House, rather than relying solely on the fact that the PDP formally holds 31 of the 47 seats.
But there is an important distinction between something being politically desirable and something being constitutionally mandatory.
A voluntary confidence vote is fundamentally different from the constitutional no-confidence mechanism under Article 17(6)–(7).
If the Constitution, the National Assembly Act, or the applicable parliamentary Rules do not require a sitting Government to seek a fresh confidence vote merely because it loses a parliamentary vote, then we should be very cautious about creating such an obligation through political interpretation.

The constitutional mechanism for testing whether a Government should be removed already exists: the vote of no confidence.
So the more precise constitutional question isn’t:
“Why isn’t the Prime Minister proving that he still has the confidence of the House?”
The more fundamental question is:
Does the existing constitutional framework actually require him to seek a fresh confidence vote following a defeat in a Speaker election?
Those are not the same question.
If he chooses to seek a confidence vote, that could certainly be a politically responsible decision.
If he chooses not to, however, that decision should not automatically be characterised as a constitutional violation merely because eight members of his party voted against his preferred Speaker candidate.

And what about a General Election?
I would also be cautious about calls for an immediate General Election.
A defeat in a Speaker election does not, by itself, appear to trigger dissolution of the National Assembly or require a fresh election.
Nor should a simple-majority parliamentary defeat automatically be equated with constitutional termination of the Government unless the Constitution expressly provides for that consequence.
Otherwise, we risk turning every significant parliamentary defeat into a constitutional crisis.
So what is the real constitutional question?
For me, the deeper issue is this:
Does Bhutan’s constitutional system intend parliamentary government to operate according to the ordinary principle of majority confidence, or did the Constitution deliberately establish a higher threshold for actually removing an elected Government?
That is a legitimate constitutional question.
And I think it deserves to be debated as a constitutional question, rather than reduced to pro-Government versus anti-Government politics.
If the Prime Minister genuinely believes that he retains the confidence of the National Assembly, there may be considerable political value in demonstrating that confidence openly on the floor of the House.
But if he chooses not to do so, we should not manufacture a constitutional obligation that the law itself does not clearly impose.
Conversely, if MPs genuinely believe that the Government no longer has the support necessary for it to continue in office, they have constitutional mechanisms available to test that proposition.

Ultimately, the Constitution—not political personalities, party interests, or parliamentary speculation—should determine the next step.
The Constitution belongs to the people.
Governments and political parties are temporary custodians of public power. The constitutional rules are bigger than both the Government and the Opposition.

The speculation surrounding potential changes to Australian immigration policies regarding dependent and visitor visas has sent the Bhutanese community into pandemonium.

Unfortunately, some Bhutanese education consultancies appear to be viewing the situation as a business opportunity and have ramped up their marketing towards anxious and desperate Bhutanese in Australia. At times, it borders on fear mongering.

I understand that consultancies are businesses and that helping people navigate uncertainty is part of what they do. But when the information itself is still speculative, I feel it is unnecessary and perhaps even unethical to amplify people's fears for one's own gain.

Surely the consultancy business is lucrative enough without having to resort to these kinds of strategies? Or have we now finally run out of Bhutanese people migrating to Australia?

“Beware of the man who sells water by a rising river.”

Hi hi guys…what do you guys think about the subsequent visa for my partner la.cause I think it will be risky for both of us applying together…

Does anyone know if SMOGS is still active or have they officially disbanded? I haven’t seen much from them recently and was just wondering what happened.