DHARMSALA, India - Tibetans across the world began voting Sunday for a new leader to take up the resistance against Chinese rule over their Himalayan homeland, as the Tibetan parliament-in-exile debated how to handle the Dalai Lama's resignation from politics.
Hundreds of monks in crimson robes joined Tibetan students, housewives and business people and the elderly in lining up in the courtyard of the Tsuglakhang Temple in India's northern city of Dharmsala, where the exiled government is based, to cast their votes in a cheerful and festive atmosphere.
Despite pleas from the Tibetan community in exile that the Dalai Lama stay on as head of government, the Buddhist spiritual leader has been adamant that the elected prime minister should take over.
The shift in power marks a major change for the Tibetan community, which for decades has looked to the Dalai Lama for both spiritual and political guidance against the heavy-handed rule of China's Communist authorities in Tibet.
The parliament-in-exile was discussing constitutional changes Sunday to enact the change and free the 76-year-old Nobel Peace laureate to focus on spiritual matters.
"He has conveyed his decision to give up his political responsibilities firmly," parliament Speaker Penpa Tsering said Saturday, predicting the assembly would honor his wish despite passing a resolution a day earlier asking him to stay.
The Dalai Lama — who is vilified by China as a political schemer — has never fully explained his decision to resign, which he announced on the March 10 anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule over Tibet that sent him into exile.
But he has suggested negotiations with Beijing might be less complicated under another Tibetan figurehead, and he has said that, in the 21st century, the idea that leaders should be elected and representative was correct.
On Sunday, some 85,000 registered Tibetans in exile — 11,000 of them in Dharmsala — were choosing the new prime minister among three candidates, as well as some new parliament members.
The premier candidates are front-runner Lobsang Sengey, a senior fellow at Harvard Law School; Tenzin Namgyal Tethong, a diplomat also settled in the United States; and Tashi Wangdi, who was the Dalai Lama's representative in Brussels, New York and New Delhi.
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http://www2.tbo.com/content/2011/mar/21/PT2NEWSO4-tibetans-cast-their-vote-to-choose-a-new/
Hundreds of monks in crimson robes joined Tibetan students, housewives and business people and the elderly in lining up in the courtyard of the Tsuglakhang Temple in India's northern city of Dharmsala, where the exiled government is based, to cast their votes in a cheerful and festive atmosphere.
Despite pleas from the Tibetan community in exile that the Dalai Lama stay on as head of government, the Buddhist spiritual leader has been adamant that the elected prime minister should take over.
The shift in power marks a major change for the Tibetan community, which for decades has looked to the Dalai Lama for both spiritual and political guidance against the heavy-handed rule of China's Communist authorities in Tibet.
The parliament-in-exile was discussing constitutional changes Sunday to enact the change and free the 76-year-old Nobel Peace laureate to focus on spiritual matters.
"He has conveyed his decision to give up his political responsibilities firmly," parliament Speaker Penpa Tsering said Saturday, predicting the assembly would honor his wish despite passing a resolution a day earlier asking him to stay.
The Dalai Lama — who is vilified by China as a political schemer — has never fully explained his decision to resign, which he announced on the March 10 anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule over Tibet that sent him into exile.
But he has suggested negotiations with Beijing might be less complicated under another Tibetan figurehead, and he has said that, in the 21st century, the idea that leaders should be elected and representative was correct.
On Sunday, some 85,000 registered Tibetans in exile — 11,000 of them in Dharmsala — were choosing the new prime minister among three candidates, as well as some new parliament members.
The premier candidates are front-runner Lobsang Sengey, a senior fellow at Harvard Law School; Tenzin Namgyal Tethong, a diplomat also settled in the United States; and Tashi Wangdi, who was the Dalai Lama's representative in Brussels, New York and New Delhi.
Read More
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2011/mar/21/PT2NEWSO4-tibetans-cast-their-vote-to-choose-a-new/
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