Nominees for Tibetan Parliament in-exile announced at Dharamsala

DHARAMSALA - The National Democratic Party of Tibet (NDPT), the only political party of Tibetan exiles, on Monday declared three nominees for the post of Kalon Tripa (Tibetan Prime Minister in-exile) and 45 nominees for the Members of Parliament for the 2011 general elections.

The decision was taken at the two-day general body meeting attended by NDPT functionaries at Dharamsala.

“We decided 15 candidates for the Members of the Parliament from each province and three candidates for the Kalon Tripa,” said NDPT President Chime Youngdung.

“The main agenda of the party is to achieve complete independence of Tibet in contrast to the middle way approach proposed by spiritual leader of Tibetans, the Dalai Lama, added Youngdung.

“Actually we are not against the middle way approach, but our stand is complete independence. So these are the two different things. The middle way approach is right now the government’s stand but this is a sort of an NGO,” he said, adding that this is initiated by the Tibetan Youth Congress, and our members.

The three nominees for the PM’s post are Lobsang Sangey, a law researcher at United State’s Harvard University, Tethong Tenzin Namgyal, a former minister in the Tibetan government in-exile and Tashi Wangde, a former Prime Minister, who is currently the Tibetan ambassador to France.

The elections for the Kalon Tripa will be held in September 2011.

The NDPT has a total of 45 nominees for Members of Parliament, fifteen each from the provinces of Dotoe, Domey and U-tsang in Tibet.

Samdhong Rinpoche, elected in 2001, is the current Tibetan PM-in-exile.

Dharamsala is the seat of the Tibetan government in-exile and also the base of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, ever since he fled from Lhasa in 1959, after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. (ANI)