In tiny Bhutan, known for its pursuit of happiness, democracy brings discontent

CHUNJE, Bhutan - It is harvest time in this village in western Bhutan, and residents are reaping an unusual crop: politicians making promises.

One politician vowed to pave the local road, now a rutted dirt track skirting a river, within three months. Another pledged to expand a nearby elementary school into a high school. A third warned against believing what the other two had said.

Within families in the village, divisions have erupted over which party to support, while partisan messages pop up daily on cellphones via a social media app called WeChat.

"In terms of peace and quiet and harmony, the old system was much better," said Chencho Dorji, 68, picking up a sheaf of rice and feeding it into a thresher.

A small Himalayan nation wedged between India and China, Bhutan is famed for its isolated location, its stunning scenery and its devotion to the principle of "Gross National Happiness," which seeks to balance economic growth with other forms of contentment.

Now Bhutan’s young democracy, only a decade old, is receiving a heady dose of the unhappiness that comes with electoral politics. In the months leading up to Thursday’s national elections, the first in five years, politicians have traded insults and made extravagant promises. Social media networks have lit up with unproven allegations and fear mongering about Bhutan’s role in the world.

It's enough to make some voters express a longing for the previous system - absolute monarchy under a beloved king. "I would love to go back," said Karma Tenzin, 58, sitting in his apartment in the picturesque capital, Thimphu. "We would be more than happy."

Bhutan is roughly twice the size of New Jersey and blanketed with mountains. In Bhutanese culture, where unity is prized, the advent of democracy has been a mixed blessing.

"We feel sad with all of these social divisions," said Dorji Penjore, who heads the Center for Bhutan and Gross National Happiness Studies, a government think tank. Democracy in Bhutan is "going to work, but naturally there are going to be costs."

If any country could figure out how to be a happy democracy, Bhutan would be it. Long before there were courses in happiness studies at American universities and happiness curriculum’s in elementary schools, Bhutan led the way in placing national contentment at the heart of its policy making.

That philosophy helped Bhutan, a relatively poor country of 750,000 people, chart a unique course for its economic development. It accepts tourists but seeks to limit the flow with mandatory high fees; its constitution requires that at least 60 percent of its landmass remain forested, which has turned it into one of the only carbon-negative countries in the world.

Bhutan also had an unusual path toward democracy: Rather than voters rising up to fight for the right to elect their leaders, the country's revered fourth king, Jigme Singye Wangchuk, initiated himself the process of drafting a democratic constitution.

The way elections are structured here is atypical, too. Buddhist monks, nuns and other clergy are not allowed to vote, on the logic that they should remain outside politics. No campaigning is allowed after 6 p.m. And candidates found “defaming” their opponents or straying into certain sensitive topics - such as Bhutan’s oppressively close relationship with India - face fines or reprimands.

From the external signs, it is hard even to tell that there is an election underway. There are no campaign posters, except on easily missed public notice boards, no buses plastered with candidates' pictures and nothing resembling a lawn sign. The slogans of the two parties - "Narrowing the gap" and "Progress with equity and justice" - are not exactly fervid.

But the campaign is intense, even if the mudslinging doesn't quite register on the American scale. One party's supporters filed a complaint with the Election Commission of Bhutan arguing that their opponents had defamed them by describing their leader as "all talk and no substance." Another complaint alleged that one party's supporters had described the other party as "anti-national." In both cases, the Election Commission levied fines.

Like democracies throughout the world, Bhutan is wrestling with the effect of new technology on elections - a challenge that is particularly acute in a once-traditional society that only allowed television in 1999.

"The main challenge we face is social media," said Sonam Tobgay, a senior official at the Election Commission. A particular concern: anonymous posts by "faceless people who create disharmony in the society."

Sitting on Tobgay's desk on a recent afternoon was a letter from the government to Facebook asking it to suspend seven pages being used regularly by supporters of the two political parties contesting the election to "spread false information and hate messages."

Lotay Tshering, a urologist by training, is the president of the Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa (DNT), or Bhutan United Party, one of the two parties vying to govern Bhutan in the final round of the elections on Thursday. At a campaign event earlier this month, he was describing the insults lobbed at him on social media - including that he was a liar and a cheater - when he started to choke up.

"I was just struck by my emotions; I couldn't continue," said Tshering in an interview Tuesday. "I'm pretty sure these [insults] are engineered by my opponents."

His opponent, Pema Gyamtsho, is president of the Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT), or Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party. He, too, bemoaned the use of social media in the election to fling insults under the cover of anonymity.

"I guess that is part of the game, but we can do without it in a small society," Gyamtsho said. "Everybody should worry about division and disunity."

Those concerns are echoed on the streets of Thimphu, a capital city without a single stoplight where these days roofs are strewn with red chilies drying in the sun before they are stored for winter. "These party workers come to our houses and stoke bad feelings," said Dorji Pem, 66, in a neighborhood in the northern part of the city. "It's so irritating it makes your head burst."

Bhutan's own happiness researchers believe democracy is weighing on the country's contentedness. Penjore, of the Center for Bhutan, noted that the last quinquennial survey of the nation, in 2015, showed a decrease in two of nine indicators used to measure Gross National Happiness - psychological well-being and community vitality.

"Our intuition is democracy played a part," Penjore said. "We are assuming that it was due to party politics."

Penjore added that some aspects of democracy run up against elements of Bhutanese culture, which is deeply influenced by Buddhist precepts. The fact that candidates must flaunt their strengths and belittle their opponents is disconcerting for an older generation of Bhutanese, said Penjore. But "in democracy, to be humble is to commit electoral suicide."

Still, both Bhutanese voters and politicians are making the switch - and some are even enjoying it. On a recent afternoon, Phub Tshering, a DPT candidate for Bhutan's parliament, began a final round of door-to-door campaigning in Chunje, a village about 12 miles north of the town of Paro.

He cheerfully stomped through fields of freshly shorn rice in the shadow of a jagged peak with flanks that rose in shades of green, ochre and slate toward a deep blue sky. His brother, an unofficial campaign aide, handed out little pouches of areca nut wrapped in betel leaf, a mild stimulant that reddens the teeth when chewed.

Around the country, the most important issues were unemployment and health care. But in Chunje, voters were worried about a shortage of drinking water, finding ways to keep wild boars out of the rice fields and the poor condition of the village road.

The real problem, according to Tshering, was that his opponent from the DNT had "told all these lies." So many lies had been told, he said, that it was "time for a counterattack from my side."

As he hopped into his car to set off for his next campaign stop, he called out a jaunty farewell. “Be happy!”