Tibetan Parliament-in-exile in a session in Dharamshala, India, on 22 March 2017. Tibet Sun/Lobsang Wangyal
By Lobsang Wangyal
ON THE WEB, 26 March 2017
The exile Tibetan Parliament passed a budget of 2,434.6 million Indian rupees (37 million USD approx) for the programmes and activities of the Central Tibetan Administration for the coming fiscal year 2017-18.
The budget session was concluded on Saturday after 11 days of deliberations at the exile Tibetan headquarters in Dharamshala.
Of the seven departments, the Department of Home gets the maximum budget with 471 million rupees to look after the Tibetan settlements in India and Nepal. The Department of Education receives 212 million rupees, and Free Tibet activities was allotted 55 million rupees.
The other major business in the Parliament was the discussion on electoral reforms. The Kashag (Cabinet) led by Sikyong (exile Tibetan Prime Minister) walked out of the House after the joint Kashag-Parliamentary Election Review Committee failed to address the Kashag’s proposal to scrap the current process of preliminary and final voting, and to conduct elections in a single round.
Sikyong argued that voting twice costs extra time and money, and due to the long campaign period people with vested interests get more time for mudslinging which causes much damage to Tibetan unity and image.
The 2016 exile Tibetan elections saw long stormy campaigns, which angered the Dalai Lama.
Due to the stalemate over the contentious issue, the Speaker suggested that Kashag present a revised proposal for further discussion in the next session in September.
I am sure it’s a good budget. 37 million US$ a year is not bad for a refugee community. It would be nice to read the sources of the budget also. I assume that the most of the CTA revenue comes from the green book (the tax from exiles). But alas, there are many Tibetans who do not pay this, particularly the number is quite big among the Tibetans living in the US.
And what about the 23 million US$ grant from the US Government. Is that a part or separate from the budget?
I am for one-time voting. So I support Kashag’s proposal. Voting twice doesn’t serve any purpose. People argue that it helps screen candidates. But if you look at the voting pattern, it’s the same people in the first voting gets elected in the second round, except for one or two. Change of one or two will happen even if a third voting is conducted. So that’s not a good reason to argue for a second voting.
I hope the Chitues will think wisely and logically, and vote in favour of a single voting as proposed by Kashang in September.
Yes, I believe Lobsang Sangay is correct, because twice the voting will increase unity and clear the decision as to whom to vote for.
The proposal to eliminate the tedious two-time voting process and instead stick to one, feels like a breath of fresh air. Indeed, it’s a sagacious proposal.
Different strokes for different folks. For us the one-time voting process makes a lot of sense, which will reduce time waste, and can be more cost effective and minimize the senseless mudslinging from vested interest entities, etc.
I wholeheartedly second the Kashag’s proposal for one voting process as a fait accompli. Please act.