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Lobsang Sangay wins straw poll for exile PM

By Lobsang Wangyal | Tibet Sun

Lobsang Sangay in a file photo taken in November 2008 in Dharamshala, India. Sangay has been voted the favourite candidate for next prime minister of the Tibetans in exile in a straw poll conducted by a web site.File photo/Tibet Sun/Lobsang Wangyal/India

A senior fellow at Harvard University Law School Lobsang Sangay has came first in a straw poll for the post of next prime minister (Kalon Tripa in Tibetan) of the Tibetan government-in-exile in 2011. Other favourites included Lobsang Palden from Germany in second place and Tenzin Namgyal Tethong from the United States in third place.

The poll conducted through the Kalon Tripa 2011 website saw Lobsang Sangay as the favourite candidate for the next prime minister, getting 1825 (41.9%) of the votes for the 2011 election.

Of the 4360 participants who cast votes online from 4 April to 1 May, 1273 (29.2%) voted for Lobsang Palden, who is a senior physician at the State Hospital of Ludenscheid in Germany. Some 1079 (24.7%) voted for Tenzin Namgyal Tethong, a distinguished fellow at Stanford University.

The poll comes almost a year before exiles are due to go to the polls. Although not recognised by any government, the opinion poll indicates the importance and seriousness which Tibetans attach to electing a new prime minister of the government-in-exile.

Though opinion polls are not considered to be accurate measurements of the electorate, considering the age of the Dalai Lama, the initiative was to engage and bind Tibetans in the virtual world to find a dynamic next-generation leader who could take a greater responsibility to lead the future of the Tibetan struggle.

In 2011, exiled Tibetans will elect a new prime minister, to head the Tibetan government-in-exile based in Dharamshala in northern India. Samdhong Rinpoche, who has been elected twice since exiled Tibetans directly elected the prime minister through popular voting in 2001, is currently serving his second five-year term, which ends in August 2011.

The Dalai Lama has appointed a person for the post of prime minister of the exiled Tibetan government from 1960 until 2001. This has been so ever since his dramatic flight on horseback over the Himalayas from Tibet to India in 1959, nine years after Chinese troops invaded Tibet.

The web site www.kalontripa.org is operated by volunteers around the world. It is an unofficial platform for electioneering and opinion polling.

Net users have recommended in all 16 people from India, Europe and North America for the prime minister’s post on the website. The number includes five women and 11 men, all listed on the Kalon Tripa 2011 web site.

There are about 150,000 Tibetan refugees in exile around the world, of which majority are living in India, Nepal and Bhutan. An estimated 120,000 people are eligible voters. Only 26.8% of those eligible voters cast their votes in the 2006 prime minister election.

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